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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



MOTHERCRAFT 





The ideal band is knitted and fastened with tapes. 



MOTHERCRAFT 



By 
SARAH COMSTOCK 




ILLUSTRATED 



NEW YORK 
HEARST'S INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY CO. 






Copyright, 1915, by 
Hearst's International Library Co., Inc. 

All rights reserved, including thai of translation into the foreign 
languages, including the Scandinavian 



AM 29 1915 
©CI.A397803 



m 



r 



This Book is Dedicated to 

Dr. THOMAS DENISON WOOD 

of Columbia University, who, through many years as 

physician, teacher, and friend, has made me so 

ardent a worshiper at the shrine of Good 

Health, that I welcome the opportunity 

of even this small volume to preach 

the gospel. I wish it could in 

any measure express to 

him my gratitude. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I Motherhood Tomorrow ... 1 
II The Days Before the Stork . 26 

III Hygiene in the Baby's Ward- 

robe 47 

IV Feathering the Nursery Nest 75 
V Feeding the New Baby . . . 102 

VI The Growing Body of Your 

Child 126 

VII A Footing For, Life .... 156 

VIII The Growing Mind of Your 

Growing Child . . . .184 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

The ideal band is knitted and fastened with 

tapes Frontispiece "" 

FACING 
PAGE 

A plain slip, the sleeves having open wrists — 
A cross-barred dimity dress with raglan sleeves — 
A plain kimono slip, easily made, easily washed and 

easily put on — S 

A crepon nightgown fastened with tapes and snaps — 
A petticoat which fastens only at the shoulders . . 52 IS 

Mummy-like wrappings are no longer a fetish, and 

"drafts" hold no terror . . . . . . 64 ^ 

Cleansing a bottle with the bottle-brush. The small 
pan and pare white soap have been used in the 
first cleansing: the large pan will be used for 
boiling the bottles . . . . . . .118 

Filling a bottle, which will be stoppered and placed in 
the ice-box. The milk has been strained into the 
pitcher. The complete outfit for preparing arti- 
ficial food for the baby, and for the caring for the . 
bottles, nipples, etc 124,*^ 

Baby's bath should be stimulating, if taken in the 

morning; soothing, if taken at night . . . 138 

Two of the habits which make for lateral curvature — 
persistently sitting on one foot and persistently 
lying on one side 170 * 



Blocks foster the building-instinct and develop the 
constructive faculty. They should be of substan- 
tial, durable material. This set is made of hard 
wood and comes in a strong chest .... 200 



\S 



JUST A WORD 

The aim of these chapters, which first appeared in 
Good Housekeeping Magazine, is to put into non-tech- 
nical English some of the newest teachings expressed 
by some of the safest-and-sanest specialists of today; 
in other words, modestly to act as interpreter. 

The material upon which they are based has been 
sifted from the teachings and preachings of physicians, 
teachers, nurses, and other specialists who, in different 
cities of our country, rank among the highest authori- 
ties. I have avoided extremists; I have sought those 
who lead along the direct and happy path of common 
sense. This means that they hold to a rational con- 
servatism while they fear no new doctrine which test 
proves sound. They are moderns, but never faddists. 

Those who have assisted me, through lectures, through 
correspondence, and above all through personal advice, 
are so numerous that I am reserving the list of names 
for another page. I am inexpressibly indebted to every 
one of them. 

S. C. 

New York, 
February, 1915. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

In preparing these chapters I have had the as- 
sistance, advice, and inspiration of many specialists, 
among them the following. With some I have had talks, 
long or short; I have listened to the lectures of others; 
some have reviewed the manuscript with me. Two or 
three may not even know that they have helped me, 
for I have had no opportunity to thank them personally 
for their lectures which I have attended. To all of 
them I gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness. 

Dr. Thomas Denison Wood, Columbia University. 

Dr. Josephine Hemenway Kenyon, Lecturer in Teachers 
College. 

Dr. S. Josephine Baker, New York Department of 
Health. 

Dr. Ira S. Wile, New York. Pediatrician. 

Dr. Charles G. Kerley, New York. Pediatrician. 

Dr. C. G. Grulee, Chicago. Pediatrician. 

Dr. Caroline Hedger, Chicago. 

Dr. Evangeline W. Young, Boston. Lecturer on Eu- 
genics. 

Dr. Eugene Crockett. Harvard Medical School. 

Dr. Edward S. Peck, Consulting Oculist of City Hos- 
pital, New York. 

Dr. Walter Clayton, New York. Dentist. 

Dr. Percy W. Roberts, New York. Orthopedist. 

Dr. Henry Ling Taylor, New York. Orthopedist. 

Dr. A. B. Judson, New York. Orthopedist. 

Dr. Eliza M. Mosher, American Posture League. 

Miss Jessie H. Bancroft, Pres. American Posture 
League. 

Miss Mary L. Read, Director of the School of Mother- 
craft, New York. 

Miss Minnie H. Ahrens, R. N. Supt. Infant Welfare 
Society, Chicago. 

Mr. E. E. Rittenhouse, Pres. Life Extension Institute, 
New York. 

xiii 



xiv ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

Mr. George R. Bedinger, Director Milk and Baby Hy- 
giene Association, Boston. 

Mrs. Frederick Cleveland Test, Director School of 
Mothercraft, Chicago. 

Miss M. L. Daniels, R. N. Supt. New York Diet 
Kitchen Association. 

Miss Virginia Crutchfield, Member of Nurses' Staff, 
New York Diet Kitchen Association. 

Miss Lillian Drew, Instructor in Physical Education, 
Teachers College. 

Mrs. Margaret J. Stannard, Director Garland School 
of Homeniaking, Boston. 

Miss Margaret E. Sayward, A.B., Instructor in Liter- 
ature for Children, Garland School of Home- 
making. 

Miss Sophie Butler, Kindergartner, Garland School of 
Homemaking. 

Miss Grace L. Brown, Instructor in Kindergarten 
Education, Teachers College. 

Mrs. S. B. Maltby, Branch Librarian, Tompkins 
Square Branch Public Library, New York. 

Mrs. Bernard Mole, Principal St. Mary's Nursery 
College, London. 






"DON'TS!" 

by the Baby 

Don't ruff me and fluff me, shirr, rosette, 
and puff me. I'm not an exhibition of 
fancy-work. I'm a human being, who wants 
to be comfortable. 

Don't pin me down so closely in the bed, 
or bind my little growing body with such 
tight clothing, or pinch my enterprising feet 
with such badly shaped shoes, that I feel like 
a nut in the grip of a steel nut-cracker. 
Don't you know that stretching and toe-curl- 
ing are two of the finest athletic sports known 
to babyhood? 

Don't clap at me and boo at me, cackle, 
bleat, and moo at me, when I'm trying my 
best to store up enough energy by peaceful 
slumber to become the President of the 
United States. 

Don't hurt the feelings of dear Aunt 
Mary Jane when she presents us with a 
heavy, cold, pique crib-spread and a knitted 
infant veil. Thank her warmly and tenderly 
for me — they can be made into a shirt-waist 
and a shoe-shine cloth. 

Don't swathe me and bundle me, coddle, 
trot and trundle me, till I long to be a little 
savage with a nice, neglectful, barbaric 
mother. Dress me lightly, lay me down in 
a quiet place, and leave me alone. 



CHAPTER I 
MOTHERHOOD TOMORROW 

TO begin with, let us take the ease of a 
certain young wife whom we will 
call Alice Andrews. For months she 
sewed, until the dainty garments billowed 
up about her — sheer, lacy, beribboned. 
Gifts poured in from friends — fluffy af- 
ghans and tiny sacques and fine wee dresses, 
hand-embroidered. Thousands of careful 
stitches went into the preparation — months 
of loving, ceaseless labor. For the greater 
part of a year she toiled, often while suffer- 
ing, but she never wearied, for all the toil, 
all the misery, were for a Purpose — the big- 
gest Purpose in the world. 

Then the climax came, and she laid aside 
her needle as a man lays aside pen or plane 
or plow to go to war. Gallantly, head up, 



2 MOTHERCRAFT 

the flags of her soul flying, she went forth 
to one of the greatest battles known to wom- 
ankind. For hours she fought, and called 
it " worth it." It was all for the great Pur- 
pose. 

The Purpose was, outwardly, small and 
red and squally, but, inwardly, it held po- 
tentially the presidency of the United 
States. I happened in one day, and asked 
Alice how she was going to care for this 
tremendous responsibility. 

" Oh, instinct will teach me," she replied, 
easily. " That's what mother says — rely on 
instinct." 

There was a nurse; but one day she left, 
and thereafter Alice tried to prepare the 
milk as she had half-observed the nurse 
doing. She added malt-sugar and water, 
but she never thought of sterilizing the bot- 
tles ; she thought washing them was enough. 
The upshot was that the Purpose, the po- 
tential President, gave a few pitiful cries 
one day, and died. 



MOTHERGRAFT 3 

All those months of toil at the needle, of 
physical wretchedness, of passionate hopes 
— all that agony of battle — to end in a few 
chests and drawers filled with futile little 
garments and stored out of sight ! This was 
because Alice Andrews relied upon instinct. 
In other words, she was the amateur mother 
of yesterday instead of the professional 
mother of tomorrow. 

" Instinct tells a mother what to do." Oh, 
it's an old chant, and it's as scientific as 
the classic statement that an upstanding 
fork means a caller, or that the moon is 
made of green cheese. Instinct forsooth! 
If Alice Andrews' husband were employing 
a stenographer, would he trust instinct to 
teach her to take his letters in shorthand? 
If Alice were sending children to school, 
would she expect instinct, operating through 
their teacher, to reveal to them the truths 
of long division and cube root? When she 
herself lay ill, was it instinct that showed 
her twenty-five-dollar-a-week nurse how to 



4 MOTHEKCRAFT 

carry her through the crisis? By no means ; 
Alice Andrews knows that in the office, the 
school, the sick-room, the most expert 
advice is demanded; and yet she claimed 
that she could carry a human being through 
the most critical period of its life by in- 
stinct. While tuners are specially trained 
before they tune a piano, milliners before 
they wire a bow, and waiters before they 
poise a platter, the greatest profession in 
the world, that of motherhood, is carried 
on by an army of untrained workers. 

Four hundred thousand children under 
five die in one year in the United States. 
Of that number it is roughly estimated that 
two hundred thousand, that is, one-half, die 
of preventable diseases. 

Who might have prevented them? 

Often, to be sure, the municipality. It 
may have played the fool with typhoid 
germs, permitting them to gambol merrily 
through the milk or the water of the city. 
It may have received mosquitoes as familiar 



MOTHERCRAFT 5 

guests. It may have spent large funds upon 
thieving contractors, and then turned 
thrifty, saying smugly, " We have just 
erected a very imposing bandstand in our 
public park, and we really can't afford to 
build an isolation hospital for contagious 
diseases, just at present." 

Accidental infection may be to blame 
sometimes, or poverty, or a stupid nurse, or 
a careless doctor. But there is one cause 
more blamable and more alarming than all 
these others — often concealed behind these 
others — and that is the fact that a large 
majority of our mothers do not know the 
ABC of scientific motherhood. 

The mothers of thousands of these babies 
who die are those who might have prevented 
the deaths. The mother who knows de- 
mands proper sanitary conditions in her 
town. The mother who knows can often 
avoid poverty, or get around it, even to mak- 
ing her own ice-chest. The mother who 
knows is less likely to let accidents happen. 



6 MOTHERCRAFT 

The mother who knows does not employ a 
stupid nurse or a careless doctor, and 
within certain limits she can replace or 
carry on their work. And I am not talking 
only of mothers among the so-called igno- 
rant classes, either. 

We may treat a symptom here and a 
symptom there — swat the fly in one com- 
munity, look into the social standing of 
our cows in another — but we are ignoring 
the root of the matter until we educate our 
mothers. The oldest, newest, biggest pro- 
fession for women is Mothercraft. 

Mothercraft — don't you like the word? 

In Europe there are now a good many 
schools devoted to this science, but in 
America it is a new-born profession as yet 
— so young that it ought to be taken up and 
trotted and fed and helped to grow by 
every woman in the United States. When 
the American Association for Study and 
Prevention of Infant Mortality met in 1911 
(it is a great, national Association, and has 



MOTHERCRAFT 7 

been addressed by many of the greatest 
scientists our country has produced), a 
resolution was passed to work for the es- 
tablishment of " continuation schools of 
homeraaking" all over our country. The 
schools proposed were to instruct the well- 
to-do as w T ell as the poor; the women of 
marrying years as well as those already 
married. 

" Federal statistics show," it was stated 
in the resolution, " that there are in the 
United States 4,990,977 women between the 
ages of fifteen and twenty-four, neither 
students nor breadwinners, and eligible for 
these schools as well as for marriage." 

It is a fairly large class to begin with, 
that almost- five-million ; and the fact that 
schools of motherhood are urged for them 
by an association whose sole business is to 
study why babies die and how they can be 
kept from dying, is pretty good evidence 
that ignorant motherhood has a large 
amount to do with present conditions. 



8 MOTHERCRAFT 

In New York City Miss Mary L. Read 
has a small school with a large ambition; 
she is blazing a trail. This is solely a 
school of Mothercraft. Courses in house- 
keeping are included, but the principal 
studies are the home care and training of 
children, and the students sought are those 
who hope one day to become mothers them- 
selves. 

Here and there, all over the country, we 
find the movement stirring. In Chicago, 
for instance, a woman's club is giving simi- 
lar lessons in scattered centers. In many 
domestic-science schools we find a course of 
instruction in some mothercraft subject. 

Consider these facts, selected at random 
from all sorts of reports which pertain to 
vital statistics and infant mortality: 

Somewhere in the world a baby under 
one year is dying every ten seconds, or one 
hundred and eighty of them while you were 
at breakfast this morning. 

Our infant-mortality rate is estimated as 



MOTHEKCRAFT 9 

about the twentieth best in a list of thirty - 
one civilized countries, though in national 
wealth we lead the list, That simply means 
that we are too busy making money to take 
time to halt the procession of little white 
hearses. 

It is almost as true today as it was when 
Bergeron said it, that a baby who comes 
into the world has less chance to live a 
week than has an old man of ninety. Some- 
how, that doesn't look as if nature intended 
such infant mortality, does it? 

Again, as mentioned above, two hundred 
thousand children under five die each year, 
in the United States, of preventable dis- 
eases. 

These statistics — don't you hear them? 
They cry out. They are like little tortured, 
terrified voices. Statistics — dull, lifeless, 
meaningless? Not these. They are as dra- 
matic as the most vivid tragedy that ever 
was staged. But the most appalling of all 
is that estimate of the deaths preventable. 



10 MOTHERCRAFT 

It means that in just one year of our his- 
tory we hang on our doors 200,000 little 
white-crepe signals too many, follow 
200,000 little white hearses too many, dig 
200,000 short graves too many. Why? 

Here is the reason for one of those 
deaths: Mrs. Shapiro gave her child of 
four a wilted tomato " to stop him cryin'." 

Another : Mrs. O'Flaherty was " afraid 
o' drafts.'' Consequently she kept her baby 
indoors — wrapped up like a mummy of 
ancient Egypt — in a tenement which 
opened only on a foul court; and a pneu- 
monia germ observed, " Just what I'm 
looking for." 

But these cases, someone comments, are 
among the poor and ignorant. Such things 
can't happen in the " residence section." 

Can't they, indeed? Mrs. Knox had been 
a professor in a woman's college before she 
married, and she had commanded a mas- 
ter's salary for her unparalleled knowledge 
of mushrooms. But all she did know was 



MOTHERCRAFT 11 

mushrooms — not babies. She refused to 
nurse hers, even when artificial feeding dis- 
agreed with it. It died. 

Mrs. Whitman had been a jolly, whole- 
some girl, supposed to be well educated in 
a private school, with some European 
travel, and a fair training in music and 
art. But she didn't know enough to stop 
her violent one-stepping before the baby 
came, and every afternoon she was at a 
dance. A corsetiere aided and abetted her. 
The baby never drew breath. 

Such preventable infant mortality, there- 
fore, can happen also among the prosperous 
and ignorant. As a matter of fact, some 
claim that the prosperous today are more 
ignorant of mothercraft than the poor. Dr. 
Abraham Jacobi, that veteran pediatrician, 
arose recently before a large dinner audi- 
ence and made the statement that the moth- 
ers of our poor are being given a better 
training than the mothers of our rich. 
" Our poor rich ! " he said. " It is time 



12 MOTHERCKAFT 

they should have an opportunity to learn ! " 
Many organizations in our great cities 
are at work, preaching the gospel of better 
babies to the mothers in the tenements. 
Here a private society takes up the work, 
there a Board of Health. Visiting nurses 
raid a home, show an open-mouthed family 
how to modify milk, and plump the baby, 
willy-nilly, into a tub. Lectures in baby 
hygiene are given where milk is dispensed. 
Not one-thousandth part as much of this 
work is done as we need, and yet, when 
you compare the hundreds and hundreds of 
mothers reached by this mother-training 
with the little groups who hear some moth- 
ercraft lecture in the Garland School of 
Homemaking in Boston, for instance, or 
the Homemakers School in Menomonie, 
Wisconsin, or Miss Read's school in New 
York, you feel that, as Dr. Jacobi says, the 
so-called upper classes should be given a 
chance. Mrs. Shapiro received a visiting 
nurse before the next baby came, and 



MOTHERCRAFT 13 

learned the laws pertaining to wilted toma- 
toes. Mrs. O' Flaherty's daughter of twelve 
joined a Little Mothers' League, and came 
home to teach her mother that a baby is 
not a mummy. But Mrs. Whitman would 
never have let a nurse, sent by the city, 
teach her the need of care during preg- 
nancy; neither would Mrs. Knox have 
visited a public diet-kitchen and learned the 
vital need of nursing her baby. 

Consequently they remain just amateur 
mothers. 

Nowadays, among the prosperous classes, 
we often find over-care of babies instead of 
under-care. The one is as unprofessional 
as the other. Dr. Charles G. Kerley, a 
pediatrician whose patients are among the 
wealthy of New York, tells mothers that 
he wishes every baby were twins, so that 
there would be some wholesome neglect of 
one, at least, while the other was being 
coddled. The mania that causes a child's 
hands to be antiseptically washed every few 



14 



MOTHERCRAFT 



minutes, that watches the thermometer in 
panic lest it deviate a hair's-breadth, that 
permits no caresses of any kind, is as un- 
scientific as neglect. A thorough profes- 
sional training will cure mothers of fads — a 
little perverted knowledge being a very dan- 
gerous thing on which to rear babies. 

Look at that word " preventable." Don't 
take it too literally ; it doesn't mean that in 
every given case death could have been 
averted, but that the disease causing each 
death was of the class known as " prevent- 
able" — that is, we ought to know better 
than to permit such diseases to flourish. 
Now, understanding this qualified meaning, 
not only do half the babies die needlessly 
— say between forty and fifty per cent., to 
please the conservative — but there are sev- 
eral times as many preventable non-fatal 
sicknesses as deaths. Thus the total of 
preventable sickness, both fatal and not 
fatal, becomes enormous. 

Statistics express themselves in extreme 



MOTHERCRAFT 15 

terms. They pay more attention to death 
than to the illnesses which escape it. But 
one specialist says, " Serious illness is just 
as important as death." Some of us may 
feel that it is more important. Perhaps, 
if a baby had its choice, it would rather be 
weeded out by Nature in the beginning 
than left to drag through a miserable life, 
one of the unfit. This same specialist 
preaches every day that serious nutritional 
and nervous ailments acquired during the 
first year are never totally overcome. The 
first is the most important year of life ; that 
year may create a lifelong suffering from 
nerves or stomach trouble. Scrupulous at- 
tention to the nutrition of the child during 
this time, and the avoidance of all nervous 
disturbance in his little life, may mean the 
permanent prevention of such invalidism. 
You know the mother who says, " Oh, 
I'm glad to have Johnny have whooping- 
cough and measles as early as possible"; 
as if they were inevitable, like falling in 



16 MOTHERCRAFT 

love. Some day we'll talk differently. It 
is believed by many leading physicians 
that the day is coming when contagious dis- 
eases, exclusive of falling in love, will be 
stamped out. 

The mother who borrowed from a neigh- 
bor's child a woolly lamb on wheels for her 
little Edith to play with, and, not mention- 
ing the fact that little Edith had diphtheria 
(the neighbor's child not having had it), 
returned the lamb in " perfectly good con- 
dition," is not hastening that day. The 
trained mother will understand prevention 
of contagion so well that she will obey its 
laws to spare others' children. 

Typhoid and malaria are classified as pre- 
ventable. You say your city permitted the 
epidemic. Haven't you, as mothers, the 
right to look to your city's housekeeping? 
Many of you, the country over, have done 
this, and the more thorough a mother's 
training the more awake will she be to 
danger. Here, too, comes in the value of 



MOTHEECRAFT 17 

resistance; it is through knowledge of 
child-hygiene that a mother builds this re- 
sistance^ — by daily care of the child. 

Select at random a recent year — say 1909. 
There were 22,990 babies under one year 
old who, that year, died of respiratory dis- 
eases in the registration area of the United 
States. Respiratory diseases include influ- 
enza, pneumonia, and the like. Mrs. 
O'Flaherty's baby was a case ; in fact, pneu- 
monia took 17,549 of that total. Dr. S. W. 
Newmayer, of Philadelphia, says that these 
diseases can be greatly prevented by dress- 
ing the child according to the variations of 
heat and humidity, and by attention to the 
need of fresh air and general sanitary con- 
ditions. 

There you have it ! Educate the mother. 

Here we have the most astounding num- 
ber of all: 41,161 summoned by diarrheal 
and enteric diseases and diseases of the 
digestive tract in general. Mrs. Shapiro's 
wilted tomato was no more to blame than 



18 MOTHERCRAFT 

was the indigestible feeding of the mushroom 
professor's baby. It is said that diarrhea 
and enteritis are almost wholly preventable, 
and ventilation is counted almost as im- 
portant in the prevention of diarrheal dis- 
eases as in that of pulmonary diseases. 

Summed up, however, improper feeding 
is the primary cause of death among babies, 
and tomorrow's mother will be mistress of 
the laws of infant feeding; moreover, she 
will be trained to recognize warnings in 
time to call a doctor. 

What of the little army, 33,274 strong in 
1909, who never faced the fight, or saw but 
a few short days or months of life? Pre- 
mature birth, congenital debility, and dis- 
eases of early infancy slew them at the 
outset. 

Now motherhood begins long before the 
first cry of the new-born baby. The least 
we can do is to train the mothers of today 
and tomorrow. When the world knows 
the full meaning of the social evil, and 



MOTHERCRAFT 19 

when our women know the immense impor- 
tance of self-care before childbirth, and 
recognize their responsibility in that direc- 
tion, there will be another tale to tell. 

Mr. E. E. Rittenhouse, president of the 
Life Extension Institute, says that we wake 
up to our responsibility "after the baby's 
too sick or too dead to have it matter." 
There is little use in abusing the birthrate 
until we have done more to curtail the 
deathrate. And these deaths, it should be 
remembered, are only the extreme cases. 
Don't forget that there are far more pre- 
ventable sicknesses than deaths. It is not 
only live babies we want: we want healthy 
babies — and not only healthy babies, but 
happy and good babies. 

Now see what this training in mother- 
craft, already pioneering its way, will mean 
to the mother of tomorrow. First of all, 
the very fact that such a training is ex- 
pected of a girl will give her a keener sense 
of responsibility toward the little life in- 



20 MOTHEECRAFT 

trusted to her. Then, that sense of re- 
sponsibility aroused, she will be called upon 
to use all the brain she possesses to grasp 
the science of mothercraft. Nobody ques- 
tions the presence of abundant gray matter 
in the modern woman ; she has proved it in 
higher education, where she has stood side 
by side with her brother. She has wedged 
her way into practically all the profes- 
sions; as lawyer, physician, educator, she is 
to be reckoned with. But somehow she has 
not, in the past, thought it worth while to 
apply much of this gray matter to the pro- 
fession of motherhood; it looked too sim- 
ple, seemed too near home to be regarded 
very seriously. If you had asked her to 
apply her much-revered gray matter to the 
choice of a baby's go-cart she would have 
scoffed indignantly. But explain to her 
that a go-cart with its seat incorrectly 
placed may concern the future of a child's 
spine, that a go-cart with the seat brought 
too low, into the midst of dust and mi- 



MOTHERCRAFT 21 

crobes, may mean serious sickness to an 
infant: and she will cease to scoff. 

Wherever classes in this science of moth- 
ercraft are being started women are awak- 
ing to how much they don't know. 

A course, to be complete, begins with the 
period of pregnancy. The carelessness and 
ignorance of mothers of all classes during 
this period is alarming. Upon a woman's 
care of her own mental and physical wel- 
fare two lives are dependent. Dr. Cressy L. 
Wilbur has emphasized the fact that in 
studying infant mortality we must always 
take into account prenatal as well as post- 
natal causes. We must nourish and guard 
the prospective mother so that the child 
shall not be prematurely born, or succumb 
during the first weeks of life. Congenital 
weakness, he says, causes many a death 
from infectious and other diseases later on. 

Then come lessons on the birth of the 
child: preparations for it, and the full 
meaning of the experience. Don't you 



22 MOTHERCRAFT 

know the kind of mother who says, " Time 
enough for my daughter to learn all this 
when she comes to it ! " and snaps her prim 
lips like a purse-clasp? We are through 
with that kind of propriety, which has cost 
health — often lives. If for no other reason, 
let a girl know what she has to face be- 
cause, as in all of Nature's miracles, under- 
standing it robs it of its worst causes 
of dread. 

The care of the new baby follows. The 
mother of the future will know how to feed, 
dress, bathe it. She will recognize the warn- 
ings of sickness. She will be able to meet 
emergencies before the doctor arrives. The 
very cries are studied — the cry of pain, of 
hunger, of temper. 

Then comes the care of a child over two, 
over five, and so on. The development of 
the diet is fundamental. Stewed apricots 
are excellent for a child of five years, al- 
though not so for one of five months. And 
don't accuse me of exaggeration, please. I 



MOTHERCRAFT 23 

know the woman who did not know this, 
and she could raise Pomeranians without 
an error. 

The next step — the school age — embraces 
questions of habits, such as a bad standing 
position, and holding a book too near the 
eyes. There are the problems of hygienic 
dressing, of recreation, work, sleep — all the 
matters that contribute to the health of boy 
and girl. Children's cooking, laundry, sew- 
ing, and the home care of sick children are 
studied. No matter how much assistance 
a mother hires, she must know how, 
herself, in order to supervise others' 
work. 

Nor does a thorough school of mother- 
craft stop at the physical care of the child ; 
a mother is always the first and most im- 
portant educator. What are a teacher's 
three or five hours against all the rest 
which belong to the mother? Unless she 
know T s many of the things that a trained 
kindergartner knows — how to direct the 



24 MOTHEEORAFT 

child's work at home, how to help with 
games, how to tell stories, how to encour- 
age nature-study — she will be losing one of 
the greatest joys that life can bring her, 
namely, a full companionship with her 
child. Of course the average intelligent 
mother does more or less of this sort of 
thing today ; but she does it as an amateur. 
The child's mind is in her hands: she can 
scatter seeds hit-or-miss, dig and water 
them as it happens; or she can become a 
skilled gardener, sowing the seeds and 
training the plants in that little mind to 
grow and unfold in the best soil and under 
the best conditions for development. But 
she must learn, first. 

Such lessons must be practically demon- 
strated, with good, naughty, wholesome, 
troublesome, lovable youngsters to prove 
the truths taught. Side by side with this 
practical work, however, goes a certain 
amount of more abstract lecturing — on 
such subjects as the history and psychology 



MOTHERCRAFT 25 

of the family, certain phases of biology 
and eugenics. 

As a matter of course no school of moth- 
ercraft would be complete without such 
training as any domestic-science school 
gives — in subjects such as family cooking, 
marketing, house-furnishing, analysis of 
fabrics, and so on. But it is the study of 
the care of the child which advances this 
new training beyond the domestic-science 
school. 

The tendency is to bring learning, like 
charity, nearer home. When woman first 
seized upon education, she eagerly de- 
manded knowledge of the tongue of ancient 
Greece and the fauna of South Africa. 

Then she realized the remoteness of 
Greek verbs and South African beasts. She 
sought an advanced training in the keeping 
of her own house. 

Now at last she has demanded expert 
training in motherhood, the most intimate 
phase of her whole life. 



CHAPTER II 
THE DAYS BEFORE THE STORK 

OUT in the middle of a big, blizzard- 
swept, sun-scorched prairie, in the 
forsaken part of our country, where 
you're lucky if the whole horizon shows you 
even one curl of smoke to utter the word, 
" Home " — there is a weather-beaten post 
standing up solitary beside a road. To this 
post is nailed a box. 

Days go by, sometimes weeks, and the 
lid of that box is never lifted. But on a 
certain morning in 1914 the old R. F. D. 
postman clattered out that way in his ram- 
shackle buggy and deposited in the box a 
large envelope. 

Two hours later a young woman galloped 
up on a cow-pony, across the face of No- 
where, eagerly lifted the lid, and more 

26 



MOTHERCRAFT 27 

eagerly tore open the expected envelope. 
A modest pamphlet bound in gray paper 
was revealed; on the cover she read: 

U. S. Department of Labor 

Children's Bureau 
Julia O. Lathrop, Chief, 

and below, the simple title, 

PRENATAL CARE 

On the road back to this young woman's 
little brown shack on the big brown prairie 
the cow-pony jogged at his own sweet will, 
for in the course of the five miles she was 
reading, devouring, the thirty-seven printed 
pages of that Government bulletin. All the 
way from Washington Uncle Sam had sent 
it at her request; it came bearing a mes- 
sage which opened her eyes as they had 
never been opened before. 

" Charlie," she said when her husband 
came home, " I wish you'd mend the buggy 
as soon as possible." She was pleasant 



28 MOTHERCRAFT 

about it; but Charlie caught a note of un- 
usual resolve. He looked up quickly. 

" Thought you liked the saddle." 
Charlie always finds tomorrow a conven- 
ient day. 

" So I do," she replied, " but I'm going to 
give it up till after the baby comes. The 
book says it isn't safe for me just now." 

He opened his eyes. " What book? " 

She showed him the pamphlet. And at 
what she said next he opened «his eyes still 
wider. 

" If the United States Government 
thinks enough of every baby in the land to 
send this book to every baby's mother that 
it can find, even out here in this lost place 
in the desert, urging her to protect that 
little life by caring for her own — then it's 
the least that every mother can do to follow 
its rules to the letter." Then she added: 
" This baby isn't going the way the other 
did." And neither of them said anything 
more just then. 



MOTHERCRAFT 29 

But when the Stork arrived at that shack 
it brought the lustiest young Westerner 
that the doctor had ever driven across the 
prairie to welcome. 

The Children's Bureau at Washington is 
sending these instructions to every woman 
who wants them, because it believes that 
the care of a child begins before it is born. 
Thus does Miss Julia C. Lathrop state her 
reasons : 

" The latest reports of the Bureau of the 
Census on mortality statistics show that 
slightly more than forty-two per cent, of 
the infants dying under one year of age in 
the registration area in 1911 did not live 
to complete the first month of life, and that 
of this forty-two per cent, almost seven- 
tenths died as a result of conditions exist- 
ing before they were born or of injury and 
accident at birth. Of those that lived less 
than one week about eighty-three per cent, 
died of such causes, and of the number that 
lived less than one day ninety-four per cent. 



30 MOTHERCKAPT 

died of these causes. Thus the Children's 
Bureau was drawn inevitably to begin its 
contemplated series of monographs on the 
care of children by a statement regarding 
prenatal care for mother and child." 
* ***** 

The first questions that every mother-to- 
be asks are usually these: 

How shall I dress? 

How shall I regulate my diet? 

How shall I bathe? 

How shall I exercise? 

If to these she would add, 

How shall I think? 
she would have fairly covered the funda- 
mentals of self-care during pregnancy — 
and self-care means care of the child as 
well. 

The modern ideas concerning dress at 
this period illustrate markedly the trend 
toward normal living. In old days physi- 
cians advised a woman to lay aside the corset 
and everything in the least like a corset; 



MOTHERCRAFT 31 

they insisted that she wear the most atro- 
cious-appearing garments, garments so 
clumsy in style, and so utterly different 
from all other garb, that the victim of them 
shrank from appearing in public. Today 
the most up-to-date physicians are permit- 
ting the corset or corset- waist, and are ap- 
proving the skillfully designed dress which 
permits ample freedom, and at the same 
time follows the general lines of current 
fashions. 

But when any physician indorses the cor- 
set, he means the right corset. 

A badly-fitted or over-tight corset is not 
only torment to the wearer, but it is abso- 
lutely perilous to both mother and child. 
We assume to start out with that you are 
the sensible young woman who never wears 
such an abomination anyway: that you 
have always been in the habit of leaving the 
laces sensibly loose and not restricting any 
part of your figure beyond the limit of 
comfort. Such a corset, then, you may 



32 MOTHERCRAFT 

safely wear through the first two or three 
months. If you have not been in the habit 
of wearing any, of course you will not 
adopt one now. 

By the beginning of the third or fourth 
month you should have a special corset 
made. Do not economize on this. It 
should be accurately fitted by someone who 
knows how, and the better the material, 
the longer it will last. It should come 
down to a deep line in front, arching for- 
ward to conform to the figure, and fitting 
fairly closely about the hips ; and it should 
have plenty of extra lacing space and elas- 
tics in the sides. It must fit the bust 
loosely, at the same time supporting it. If 
this corset is correctly made, you will not 
need to discard it until a short time before 
the arrival of the baby, when an abdominal 
supporter may replace it. 

As for other clothing, it should be loose 
and comfortable, but there are patterns for 
pretty dresses which are all of this. Ready- 



MOTHERCRAFT 33 

made garments can also be bought in ex- 
cellent styles. The underclothing must be 
thoroughly warm ; in winter, it should have 
high neck and long sleeves. The stockings 
should be fastened by side elastics, and in 
fact all the clothing should, as far as pos- 
sible, be supported from the shoulders. 
Avoid anything which binds about the 
waist. 

Shoes are of great importance. High 
heels are risky, for they always open the 
way to a fall, which is serious at such a 
time. Moreover, they tilt the body forward 
in a disadvantageous position. Wear low- 
heeled shoes, and make sure that the nerves 
are not irritated by any pressure on the 
feet — the shoes should be looser than 
usual. 

The diet of the mother-to-be has always 
been associated with absurd superstitions, 
old-wives' tales, and terrors. As a matter 
of fact, the most sensible physicians of the 
day are preaching, " Eat what you want." 



34 MOTHERCEAFT 

This advice is to be followed, however, after 
you have thoroughly investigated your 
wants, and made sure that they are both 
safe and sane. It does not mean that you 
are to indulge morbid cravings for unusual 
foods — anchovy paste, champagne, and sour 
February strawberries are some of the ab- 
normal desires I have heard of, desires of 
women who had never enjoyed any of these 
things in their lives before. It does mean 
that you are to keep to the safe path of a 
simple, nourishing diet, eat enough, and 
know when to stop eating. 

Meat should be used sparingly during 
this time — once a day is sufficient, and if 
eggs and milk are substituted part of the 
time for meat, you will be as well off. 
Vegetables and fruits should always form 
an important part of your diet, but more 
especially now, when the system must be 
kept in perfect order. Salads are good, 
provided the dressing does not disagree 
with you, but there is danger of this. Cer- 



MOTHERCRAFT 35 

tain vegetables are hard to digest — the au- 
thority, Dr. Slemons, names among these 
cabbage, cauliflower, cucumbers, egg-plant, 
and radishes. Onions prove indigestible to 
some. But this leaves a long list of vege- 
tables which are most beneficial, including 
beans, peas, spinach, asparagus, celery, let- 
tuce, and tomatoes. 

For dessert, avoid rich cakes and pies. 
Fruit may be substituted, or one of the 
light puddings, such as blanc-mange, cus- 
tard, gelatine, and tapioca. Pure ice cream 
is harmless, and if made of good milk or 
cream is nourishing as well. Avoid a great 
many sweets, such as candy and cake. This 
does not mean that they are to be renounced 
altogether, for the system needs some sugar, 
but they may cause an excessive weight on 
the part of the child if over-indulged in. 
The best authorities do not recommend 
strenuous dieting to reduce the child's 
weight, for this is more likely to have the 
result of reducing the strength of the 



36 MOTHERCRAFT 

mother; it is best, however, to eat spar- 
ingly of the sweets. 

Whole wheat or corn bread are better 
than white. Milk should be an important 
item of the mother's diet, both before and 
after the birth of the child. 

And now as to the quantity of food. Be- 
tween the anxious physician of yesterday 
who insisted upon a greatly-reduced diet, 
and the head-wagging old women of the day 
before yesterday, who croaked their fa- 
miliar chant of " Eat for two, eat for two ! " 
we have a rational path today — the path of 
eat-as-much-as-you-want. During the first 
part of pregnancy the appetite is likely to 
be weak ; don't force it. Later on, the appe- 
tite grows vigorous; satisfy it. But the 
safe side is always under-, rather than over- 
eating; while you must have enough nour- 
ishment to keep up your strength at all 
times, you must be particularly careful 
never to more than satisfy a wholesome ap- 
petite, for indigestion may have serious re- 



MOTHERCRAFT 37 

suits. Divide the food of the twenty-four 
hours into five or six light meals rather 
than three hearty ones, if you have any 
signs of indigestion; this will have a tend- 
ency also to control the frequent nausea. 

It is especially necessary at this time 
that you drink a great deal. Water is the 
best beverage of all. After water come 
sweet milk, soup, cocoa, and buttermilk. 
Three quarts of fluid should be drunk every 
day — or more. Tea and coffee need not be 
given up entirely, if you have been accus- 
tomed to their use, but use them sparingly. 
Alcoholic drinks should never, under any 
circumstances, be used at this time unless 
recommended by a physician. We do not 
as yet fully comprehend the workings of 
alcohol in the mother's system during preg- 
nancy, but physicians are pretty well 
agreed that it may be very far-reaching in 
its effects. It is not giving the baby a fair 
chance, at any rate. 

Bathing is of the utmost importance, for 



38 MOTHERCRAFT 

the reason that if the pores become even 
ever so little clogged they cannot throw off 
the waste, and it is more important now 
than at any other time in your life that all 
waste of the system should be properly 
carried off. The morning bath may be cold 
if you have made a habit of this previously ; 
otherwise, moderate the temperature and 
let it be only cool. Give up your customary 
cold bath if you do not glow after it. In 
any case, rub vigorously with a rough towel 
to stimulate the circulation. 

At least one warm bath a week should 
be taken — at night. Two or three should 
be taken if they cause no discomfort. Very 
lengthy and very hot baths are too exhaust- 
ing. Avoid hot baths at those particular 
times when great care is necessary in all 
ways. 

Exercise — indoors, outdoors, regularly, 
and lightly. Easy housework is one of the 
best forms of exercise, for it gives activity 
to many muscles. Don't do a washing, lift 



MOTHERCRAFT 39 

heavy furniture, climb ladders, or run a 
sewing machine. If coal is to be carried 
upstairs, some other member of the family 
can do it better than you. But cooking, 
dishwashing, very light ironing, and the 
like are safe, and they serve to occupy 
the mind as well as invigorate the 
body. 

But no indoor exercise is worth a con- 
tinental compared with that taken out- 
doors. Walk in the open air, always re- 
membering to stop on the instant that you 
feel tired. Some women feel tired at a half- 
mile, others at a half-dozen; less than the 
half-dozen, however, is a safe maximum for 
even the most athletic. Do very light work 
among your flowers — those geraniums need 
to have their dead leaves snipped off, and 
the rose vines should be tied up. No — not 
above your head — let someone else do all 
the high reaching. And take your exercise 
like your food — in small doses. 

There are important don'ts in the matter 



40 MOTHERCRAFT 

of exercise. Don't ride horseback, play golf 
or tennis, or bathe in the surf. They are 
too violent — they involve risk. Jolting in 
an automobile is also dangerous, though a 
smooth drive over easy roads, and not a 
long one, may be beneficial, in either car- 
riage or machine. 

When you can't exercise, just exist in the 
open air, as many hours as you can out of 
the twenty-four. Take your knitting or 
your reading to the porch. Receive your 
callers there. And keep your house, es- 
pecially your sleeping-room, ventilated 
thoroughly. Use light-weight, warm bed- 
ding, and sleep with open windows — not 
wide open, of course, in the most bitterly 
cold climates, but with as much fresh air 
as you can comfortably bear. 

" How shall I think? " is a question that 
ought to confront every woman who is 
placed in immediate charge of a new life-to- 
be. Her own health is so greatly affected 
by right or wrong thinking, that she can- 



MOTHERCRAFT 41 

not afford to neglect the matter for even a 
day. 

She must think hopefully. 

That means, avoid fear, expect a success- 
ful outcome of your months of loving labor, 
care, sometimes suffering. Say to yourself, 
" I am conscientiously following every wise 
rule of health, and the normal result will 
be a healthy child, and my own safe deliv- 
ery." 

She must think calmly. 

Every form of excitement is a disadvan- 
tage, often causing insomnia and nervous- 
ness, which disturb the digestion and other- 
wise injure the health. 

Light and interesting occupations keep 
the mind from brooding, worrying thoughts. 
Mingle with your friends, as long as it does 
not fatigue you, chat of pleasant subjects, 
shut worry away in the darkest cellar of 
your brain, and lock the door on the ogre. 
If you find a tendency developing to lie 
awake after you go to bed, thinking gloomy 



42 MOTHERCRAFT 

thoughts, try a hot-water bag at your feet 
or a cup of hot milk to quiet the nerves. 

Now for some of the special difficulties 
which arise to confront a mother at this 
period. Trouble with the teeth is one of 
the annoying enemies. 

As soon as you know that you have en- 
tered upon pregnancy, let a dentist ex- 
amine and make all fillings necessary. 
This will prevent an ordeal later on, when 
you are less able to endure the nerve strain 
of dentistry. 

The tendency to indigestion, and all 
minor irregularities should be corrected by 
diet as far as possible, never by medicine if 
it can be avoided. If you must use medi- 
cine, let your physician advise you. 

Rubbing a little vaseline into the breasts 
every day tends to prevent trouble with 
them. 

The best protection against kidney disor- 
der lies in drinking plenty of fluid. But 
since there is often a disorder which the 



MOTHEECRAFT 43 

patient cannot detect, she should insist 
that her physician examine into this matter 
at least once a month at the beginning of 
pregnancy, and even more often later on. 

The annoying nausea which accompanies 
this condition is relieved by eating a cracker 
or two before rising in the morning; by a 
glass of milk between meals, or frequent 
light meals ; and by a calm mental attitude. 
The last-named is very important, for nerv- 
ousness communicates itself promptly to 
the stomach — witness the host of " nerv- 
ous dyspeptics " in proof of this ! 

Nervousness may be at the bottom of 
many of your physical ailments. You must 
quiet your nerves at this time by abundant 
sleep. Many doctors lay down the rule 
that every pregnant woman should sleep 
at least one-third of the twenty-four hours. 
There should be a nap in the middle of the 
day. 

When you first see the signs of the ap- 
proaching Stork, choose and engage your 



44 MOTHERCRAFT 

doctor — and remember that the choice is 
very important. You may not need him 
greatly until the day of miracle arrives, but 
you should have his interest in your case, 
and you should call upon him if any puz- 
zling symptoms display themselves. He 
will suggest certain specific rules for your 
case — no two are exactly alike. For in- 
stance, if for any reason you cannot go out- 
doors, he will recommend a few light exer- 
cises to be taken indoors, using the leg and 
abdominal muscles. If you are obliged to 
stay in bed, he will advise that you let a 
masseuse give you treatment. So there are 
many individual problems arising, and the 
wise physician will help you to solve these. 
But to the woman who passes through a 
normal pregnancy, the above rules of 
health answer her chief questions. Summed 
up, you will notice that they amount to 
very much the same as any rules of health 
for any normal person. Only that, if you 
have been ever so little slack before in mat- 



MOTHEKCRAFT 45 

ters of hygiene, you must redouble your 
efforts now that so great a responsibility 
rests with you. 

Just a word on the subject commonly 
known as " prenatal influence." Old- wives' 
tales again! Thank medical science, which 
has put a devastating bomb under the 
hideous superstitions relating to this sub- 
ject, and satisfactorily exploded the theories 
for all time ! Dreadful tales of " mark- 
ings " have terrified mothers for years and 
years of history; the mother of today 
knows better. The highest authorities no 
longer believe that these dreadful resem- 
blances to some creature which has fright- 
ened the mother can be stamped upon the 
unborn child. 

But take " prenatal influence " in an- 
other sense, and it is far from being unreal. 
The influence of your general health, phys- 
ical and mental, upon your child-to-be 
cannot be overestimated. Mrs. Max West 
says: 






46 MOTHERGKAFT 

" If she (the mother) lives in such a 
manner as to establish and conserve her 
own health, taking plenty of sleep and ex- 
ercise, eating sensibly of simple food, and 
in every way striving to take the best pos- 
sible care of her own body, so that the di- 
gestive, assimilative, and excretory func- 
tions are carried on in the highest degree 
of efficiency, she can be quite sure that the 
child will be able thereby to build up for 
himself a sound and normal body and 
brain." 



CHAPTER III 

HYGIENE IN THE BABY'S 
WARDROBE 

THE Oracle stood in the midst of a 
group of girls and women who were 
gathered in an uptown dwelling- 
house of New York City. It was plain that 
she was an oracle from the rapt manner in 
which the group hearkened to tne words of 
wisdom falling from her lips. She didn't 
look it, being small and blonde and gentle 
instead of black and sinuous and mysteri- 
ous; but presently her gentleness vanished, 
and she spoke with something akin to vio- 
lence. 

" This," she said, " is one of the wicked- 
est things in the world. It may undermine 
human happiness. If there is one thing on 

47 



48 MOTHERCRAFT 

earth that is all sentiment and no sense, it 
is this!" 

And she held aloft a tiny affair of blue 
kid and shiny buttons — merely a baby's 
shoe! 

It may not appear at first glance that a 
baby's blue kid shoe is an affair of vast 
importance. But, as a matter of fact, it 
is a subject of scientific criticism in one of 
the most important courses in one of the 
most important schools in the United 
States. This is Miss Mary L. Read's School 
of Mothercraft, and it is important, not be- 
cause it has great size or great fame, but 
because it is blazing a remarkable trail 
which is bound to be followed by many 
others in the days to come. When the his- 
tory of education in our country comes to 
be written, Miss Read and her school will 
be recorded as pioneers. She declares that 
the mother of yesterday was an amateur, 
that the mother of tomorrow must be a 
prof essional ; but she faces the fact that the 



MOTHERCRAFT 49 

mother of today is still holding off du- 
biously from this point of view, just as the 
old-time farmer held off when science came 
along and told him how to save his crop by 
blanketing the moisture — " none o' them 
highfalutin' new idees fur me," you know. 

With the old methods the crops died. 
So did the babies. 

And while disapproval and doubt still 
lurk in the air, Miss Read has had the cour- 
age to found a school for the sole purpose 
of teaching mothers their profession. It 
occupies an entire building, a residence, in 
New York, and it employs as lecturers only 
skilled specialists in pediatrics, in child- 
study, in domestic science. The most popu- 
lar course is called " The Nursery " ; in it 
Miss Read treats of those months during 
which the mother-to-be prepares the empire 
for His Small Majesty; her care of herself, 
the arrangement of the room where the 
baby is to spend his first days, and the 
preparation of the layette. 



50 MOTHEKCRAFT 

The incorrectly made shoe, pinching and 
creasing the poor little growing foot, serves 
as text for a thorough and scientific study 
of the baby's wardrobe. From shoes to cap, 
every article should be chosen with the 
common sense that is innate and the knowl- 
edge of hygiene that is acquired. Health, 
even life, may depend on proper clothing. 

The one fundamental law, preaches this 
school, is, " Make the baby comfortable." 

And this, be it understood, is not accom- 
plished by garbing him like an elaborate 
boudoir pincushion. The other day I 
paused before a window in New York's 
most fashionable shopping district; it was 
filled with fabulously priced garments for 
infancy. They fluffed and they ruffed; 
they burst into bloom, here, there, every- 
where, with pink rosettes; they fussed and 
they mussed — or they would muss, within 
five minutes, if a thoroughly athletic, do- 
or-die, all-for-progress, fight-for-my-country 
type of young American, a few months of 



MOTHEECRAFT 51 

age, should enter those garments under 
compulsion. If he could speak, he would 
beg aloud : " I beseech you, Very Large 
Person, who descends upon me and twirls 
my arms about in their sockets and forces 
them into ruffled and bow-knotted sleeves, 
please rip off all those dreadful, meaning- 
less, unbeautiful, fussy trimmings, and let 
me wear the simplest of garments. And 
kindly remove all these hot wrappings, one 
upon another. I am not an onion, but the 
warmest-blooded human being in existence. 
Dress me with simplicity and lightness, so 
that I may be comfortable, and I shall 
reign as happy as the proverbial king." 

So much for generalities. Now glance 
over the details of the model wardrobe 
given in this " Nursery " course. The 
standpoint is that of hygiene, not fashion, 
remember. But all the new patents and 
patterns for baby-wear are investigated by 
the specialists in charge, and, when a valu- 
able improvement is brought out, it is given 



52 MOTHERCRAFT 

consideration. It is interesting to observe 
that the instructors here cling pretty 
closely to standard garments, and let most 
of the bizarre inventions pass them by. 

Suppose you are preparing a wardrobe 
for the first three months, which is suffi- 
ciently far in advance for the start. Babies 
differ so in the rate at which they outgrow 
and outwear garments that it will be time 
enough to meet their further needs later 
on. First, the students are advised to pre- 
pare six or eight simple slips. They had 
best be of nainsook, crepe, dimity, or long- 
cloth. The standard length of twenty- 
seven inches from shoulder to hem is fol- 
lowed. It may be remarked here that in 
giving the number needed of each garment, 
the school aims to give a fair supply for the 
mother of average means. It is highly 
probable, however, that you will make and 
receive enough to garb an entire orphan 
asylum. 

Next comes the flannel petticoat. Four 




A plain kimono slip, easily made, easily washed and easily 
put on — A crepon nightgown fastened with tapes and 
snaps — Above, a petticoat which fastens only at the 
shoulders. 



MOTHEECRAFT 53 

petticoats will be a fair supply. The Ger- 
trude pattern is recommended. This is not 
gathered to a waist, but cut on the lines of 
a princess dress. It should fasten with 
two snaps on each shoulder. Just here, 
modernism steps in to utter a protest 
against those time-honored atrocities, the 
pinning-blanket and the barrow-coat. Ban- 
ish them! 

Beneath the slip and the petticoat lies 
a great problem — it might verily be called 
a national problem — namely, the baby's 
shirt. Held in the hand, this seems an ex- 
ceedingly small article to occasion dis- 
agreement among patterns, parents, and 
pediatricians, almost to the point of war- 
fare. Yet, " Wool, all wool, the warmest 
weave possible ! " cries one, shuddering at 
the mere suggestion of slaughtering influ- 
enzas and pneumonias. " The lightest 
linen mesh, absolutely essential, a material 
to discourage perspiration," asserts an- 
other. Silk, cotton, mixtures, all have their 



54 MOTHERCRAFT 

champions. Wool points with alarm at 
Mesh, crying, " Anarchist ! " while Mesh re- 
joins by jeering, " Fossil ! " 

After all, there's some reason for the 
fray. No factor in a baby's life comes 
closer to him than his shirt; no friend is 
more intimate ; and if it's a friend in which 
confidence is misplaced, woe to the poor 
baby! 

This school attempts to sift and sum- 
marize the teachings of the most eminent 
and advanced pediatricians when it recom- 
mends a three-quarters wool shirt for the 
first few weeks, whatever the season, with 
the thinnest of gauze garments under- 
neath ; later, a cotton mesh in summer and 
a silk-and-wool in winter. Remember this 
enlightening fact : a mesh is always warmer 
than a closely woven material, because air 
is a non-conductor of the heat of the body, 
and the open weaving admits air. You see 
the point? The body heat is kept in by the 
non-conducting air that enters the meshes. 



MOTHERCRAFT 55 

You know, by experience, how much 
warmer your own sweater is than the heav- 
iest cloaking; or the afghan your blessed 
grandmother knit, than a quilt. For this 
reason, select loose weavings for the baby. 
A closely woven shirt often misses its pur- 
pose, and chills by its clamminess rather 
than warms. 

Four of the first shirts is a minimum 
number to start with. 

The provision of diapers is a matter of 
the utmost importance, not only for the 
baby's immediate comfort, but for his 
health, as well. Start with not less than 
eighteen. Authorities differ as to the best 
material for them. Cheese-cloth is advo- 
cated by some, on account of its remarkable 
absorbent qualities, united with its softness 
and lightness. Cotton flannel is used by 
many, but should be used with this warn- 
ing: always boil it when new, to render it 
absorbent. The bird's-eye diaper, twenty 
by twenty inches, with a bit of old linen — 



56 MOTHERCRAFT 

table-damask is excellent — folded in, to 
give it a soft surface, is the one chosen by 
Miss Read, if you prefer the home-made 
article. But, best of all, she urges, is the 
knitted and shaped garment, very absorb- 
ent, very light, very easily kept in place. 

Whatever diaper you use, two points 
must be borne in mind: the surface must 
be soft, for chafing may become serious; 
and the folding must not be thick enough 
to throw out the hips. The tiny bones are 
soft, as yet, and they easily take on what- 
ever shape they are forced into. There is 
danger, too, in pinning the diaper too 
tightly about the hips ; impeded circulation 
may result from this practice. 

Miss Read also speaks emphatically on 
the subject of the fitted rubber garment so 
widely sold. All of you know the heating 
property of rubber ; you have experienced it 
in your raincoat, your overshoes. What 
must it be when worn close to the little 
body? It is considered absolutely un- 



MOTHEKCKAFT 57 

healthful, more dangerous than you per- 
haps imagine. There is a knitted water- 
proof diaper which may be folded lightly 
over the usual one for emergency use — 
when the baby is to be taken out for a long 
time, for instance. But all hot and uncom- 
fortable bundlings should be carefully 
avoided in ordinary use, no matter how 
great a convenience they may appear at 
first thought. 

A word in passing on the subject of chaf- 
ing. It is a frequent annoyance, and may 
easily grow from a mere annoyance to a 
more serious difficulty. The first and sim- 
plest rule is that of prevention by perfect 
cleanliness. But there are times when the 
delicate skin becomes irritated in spite of 
this. The trouble can usually be checked 
by the use of a boric solution which any 
druggist can furnish; it should be applied 
by allowing it to drip gently from a piece 
of absorbent cotton which has been dipped 
in it. If the chafing still continues, vase- 



58 MOTHERCRAFT 

line may be applied ; and, in the worst cases, 
a powder, stearate of zinc, is effective. 
The latter is recommended by Dr. Joseph- 
ine Baker, of the New York Department of 
Health, and may, incidentally, serve in case 
of an ugly burn. 

If buttons and tapes could replace the 
safety-pin, the millennium would be in 
sight. There is a paper pattern now on 
the market, describing what looks to be an 
excellent substitute for the square diaper, 
with tapes for tying in place of the wicked 
though time-honored pin. Only when 
many babies shall confer, to compare their 
experiences, can we know whether this new 
garment is all that it claims to be. But 
this we do know ; it will be a joyful day for 
infancy when the so-called safety-pin is no 
more. Not only does it persist in jabbing, 
even under skillful management, but it has 
a habit of gravitating toward a baby's 
throat, as a needle toward a magnet. 
When the baby swallows it, by the way, 



MOTHEECRAFT 59 

there is but one thing for the layman to do, 
and that is, hold the baby up by his legs, 
and force him to cough out the swallowed 
pin by vigorous thumps on his back and 
shoulders. This appears brutally primi- 
tive, but it is in accordance with the advice 
of physicians, who warn the unskilled 
against trying to remove any object from 
the throat with untrained fingers, which 
may only succeed in pushing it farther 
down. 

We are now down to the difficult subject 
of the band — difficult because it is a point 
whereon doctors disagree; and this School 
of Mothercraft prefers not to decide. The 
students are advised to follow each her own 
physician's counsel in the matter. For the 
most part, the profession agrees nowadays 
that from one to two months is long enough 
for the use of the first band, but some still 
think it should be used for a longer period, 
believing that it wards off both colds and 
intestinal troubles. It should be knitted, 



60 MOTHERCKAPT 

and fastened with tapes. The time of wear- 
ing it is a detail pertaining less to mother- 
craft than to doetorcraft, and is left for 
the latter to settle. No mothercraft school 
should cause dissension with any reliable 
physician, but should aid his patient in 
supplementing and carrying on his work 
intelligently. The professional mother of 
the advanced type stands to the physician 
in a relation akin to that of the nurse : not 
asserting personal opinions opposed to his 
more extensive knowledge, but trained so 
thoroughly that she can work in harmony 
with him. 

If the band which replaces the shirt is 
to be worn, a well-shaped one can be 
bought, with shoulder-straps. The diaper 
tabs are pinned down. The garment is 
elastic and gives the baby all the leeway 
necessary for his gymnastic performances. 

The other day, in looking over the lay- 
ettes displayed in one of the largest New 
York shops, I came upon the most irresist- 



MOTHERCRAFT 61 

ible garment that ever gladdened my eyes. 
It was a tiny kimono of the peachiest pink 
Japanese silk, sprayed over with delicate 
white blossoms in Japanese embroidery. 
In shape it did not differ at all from the 
kimono you wear every morning when 
dressing your hair. But it was far more 
than pretty. It was an ideal garment for 
the very small baby on a warm day. The 
silk possessed just enough warmth to ward 
off colds on the day when a knitted or 
flannel sacque is too heavy ; it was washable ; 
and, furthermore, it possessed the kimono 
sleeve. 

That kimono sleeve! It is incorporated 
into the very creed of Miss Read's School. 
It is urged for every garment where it can 
possibly be used. No other one problem 
of dressing the baby causes as many sighs 
and groans as the question of getting that 
squirming, waving, wriggling, flapping, 
twisting, defiant little arm into the hole 
aimed at. 



62 MOTHEROKAFT 

Shape the wrapper, then, and the long 
flannel coat, and the flannel and crocheted 
sacques, with this sleeve. And in providing 
these outer garments — by " outer," I mean 
those garments to be worn over the cotton 
slip, either when you take the baby up 
indoors or when you take him out — bear 
in mind the watchword " lightness. " Bun- 
dling is one of the commonest curses of 
babyhood. Choose a light-weight flannel or 
a challis, and never use a heavy yarn or 
zephyr for your knitting and crocheting. 

The first cloak will be an ample cape — 
of warm flannel for winter, of light cash- 
mere, lined with Japanese silk, for milder 
weather. From this sleeveless garment the 
baby soon graduates into the free-arm 
class, and excellent use will he make of his 
privileges. 

The cap, too, should not be too warm. 
The customary bit of embroidered cotton 
goods and lace, the ribbon fastened with 
snaps instead of a bow, is a quite sufficient 



MOTHERCRAFT 63 

crown for the royal head in summer; the 
coldest days call for nothing heavier than 
an angora knitted cap, or a light serge or 
broadcloth lined with washable silk. As 
for the veil, it is becoming obsolete, and the 
only misfortune is that it has not quite be- 
come so. I remember a " Shetland veil," 
relic of my own infancy, in which I used 
to wrap my dolls, and I know now that 
never was an infant veil put to better use. 
It is nothing but a burden to the much 
abused baby. It obstructs the vision, with 
a real risk of harming the eyesight; it 
hinders complete freedom in breathing; it 
gathers moisture, and, in cold weather, 
freezes against the lips and nostrils; it is, 
in general, a bugbear. If the day is so bit- 
terly cold that the baby cannot go out with- 
out his face being covered, it is a perfectly 
good day to keep him at home. 

The gospel of the modern pediatrician is 
the gospel of fresh air. I know a baby of 
today whose first word was neither 



64 MOTHERCRAFT 

" Mama " nor " Papa," but " F'esh air." 
She would wake in the night crying for it. 
Since we have come to this, since we de- 
mand open windows and sleeping-porches 
where our grandmothers' hair arose in 
horror at a slight " chilliness," we must 
adapt our layette to our modern ways. 

The baby lies very still for a while after 
his advent into this world, silently form- 
ing his opinion of it, but undertaking no 
enterprises. He has found the thin cotton 
slip with simple undergarments sufficient 
for both day and night, with two changes 
in twenty-four hours. But when his feet 
have grown active, and you are beginning 
to turn off the heat for the night, to throw 
open the windows, perhaps to place the 
crib on the sleeping-porch, you must alter 
the clothing to meet this change. The 
nightgown which closes with buttons at the 
hem, the back folding over the front, is 
recommended as a protection to the feet; 
this offers more freedom than the pattern 




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MOTHEKCRAFT 65 

which gathers on a drawstring at the hem, 
and is therefore preferable. It should be 
made of flannel for sleeping in the cold air. 

The gown may be followed by night- 
drawers, the " Teddy Bears " which cover 
the feet like stockings. Best of all, for 
really cold weather, is the sleeping-bag, to 
be made of flannel. A paper pattern for 
this, with hood attached, can be bought, or 
a literal bag may be made, drawn up on a 
string around the neck. Shut the baby into 
this cozy little cavern of warmth, pin the 
bedclothes — loosely, remember! — so that he 
can't fling them off in the violence of his 
young energy, and there you have him, 
proof against the dangers of the weather, 
while his greedy lungs are drinking in all 
its benefits. 

In providing any sleeping-garment which 
closes at the foot, beware of making it too 
short. Stretching is a baby's form of gym- 
nastic drill; it does for him what swinging 
from the rings or hanging from the bar 



66 MOTHERCRAFT 

does for you. Don't let anything interfere 
with his gymnastics. And, too, he may be 
much handicapped by tight pinning down 
of his covers. Have you yourself never 
waked in the terror of some horrible night- 
mare, to find that you were so tightly 
tucked in that your whole body felt as if 
it were in a vise? The normal human be- 
ing likes to stir a bit, and freely, in his 
sleep ; and there is nothing more important 
to remember than the fact that the baby 
is a normal human being. Except for his 
being at a more sensitive period of life, he 
is much like yourself in his likes and dis- 
likes, and his general hygiene should cor- 
respond. Allowances must be made for his 
being more frail than the adult, more sus- 
ceptible to disease; but the fundamental 
principles of his care are exactly like 
those of your own. Therefore, it's not a 
bad thing to ask yourself, now and then, 
how you would feel under his conditions. 
If he is sleeping in very cold air, you will 



MOTHERCRAFT 67 

find a sweater and mittens convenient, 
after he arrives at the age when arms re- 
fuse to " stay put " under the bedclothes. 
Such garments as these need not be pro- 
vided, of course, until after the ruler of the 
nursery empire has come to his throne. 
The first shirts, bands, diapers, petticoats, 
slips, sacques, wrappers, and cape are 
enough to start with. As the weeks go by 
you can increase the number of garments, 
but never deviate from the rule of sim- 
plicity which should govern their design. 
The later slips will probably be about the 
same length as the first, but larger, to al- 
low for the rate at which his weight is in- 
creasing. The numbers of wrappers and 
sacques must be augmented, for the baby 
will be taken up more and more indoors, 
besides being kept for longer periods out- 
doors. If he arrives in the summer, physi- 
cians say that he may fare forth into the 
open world before he is a month old; if in 
winter, he may perchance be housebound 



68 MOTHERCEAFT 

for the first six weeks of his existence, but 
seldom longer. From the trial trip of half 
an hour, his jaunts grow to five hours 
within a period of about three weeks, by 
which time he is a hardened man of the 
world. Bearing all this in mind, you can 
see what provision for outdoor sleeping 
and waking hours will be needed in the 
wardrobe as the weeks advance. 

Among some of the small accessories, 
items which have much to do with daily 
comfort, there is a knitted bib which ab- 
sorbs moisture more thoroughly than the 
quilted style. The quilted bib is hard to 
wash thoroughly. If you prefer to make 
your own, use crash for the purpose, and, 
if necessary, put a layer of thin, water- 
proof material under the crash. A bib 
which holds moisture is not only untidy 
but risky to health, lying as it does on the 
little chest. The thinner bib is far more 
cleanly and sanitary than the quilted one. 
A half-dozen is a minimum number. 



MOTHERCRAFT 69 

The best pinning-band is woven of an 
elastic, loose-meshed material. If you 
make your own, get a soft flannel and leave 
it with raw edges, for any crease, such as 
a hem makes, is irritating to the tender 
flesh. Four of these bands will be suffi- 
cient. 

Under all the sane innovations in baby 
attire is the rule that there shall be as few 
gathers, buttons, bows, and so on as possi- 
ble; every one of these presses the soft 
flesh. Hence, it is well to use snaps in the 
place of buttons. Never allow baby clothes 
to be starched. Use the tape that is war- 
ranted not to twist. All these things make 
for His Majesty's comfort. 

There is a growing tendency, and a wise 
one, to replace the older fabrics with soft 
cr§pon or French crepe for the little slips 
and dresses. They need not be ironed, and 
they are most comfortable. The fine cross- 
barred dimity, too, is dainty, and wears 
excellently. 



70 MOTHEKCEAFT 

To return to the text of the blue kid 
shoe. The principal of the School of Moth- 
ercraft has been goaded to despair by the 
sight of growing little feet pinched and 
pressed and distorted. She has longed to 
snatch off countless pairs of treasured first 
shoes, and stow them in the waste-basket. 
" The proper place for most baby shoes is 
the relic chest/' she says, " where parents 
can wax as sentimental as they like 
over the atoms of blue kid, but where 
they are safely out of the poor baby's 
way." 

Thus speaks authority. And here follow 
the very important instructions for dress- 
ing the feet of infancy, as laid down by 
the specialist in baby care. 

First, don't dress them at all. 

This law holds good for all those early 
weeks when the long garments, as well as 
the bedclothes or carriage blankets, cover 
these wiggling, curling, growing members. 
Let them wiggle, let them curl, let them 



MOTHEKCKAFT 71 

grow! Don't persecute them with hot, 
knitted bootees, which are totally unneces- 
sary under so many coverings. There may 
be rare occasions when excessive cold 
makes them and the stockings excusable; 
but such occasions are rare, indeed. Even 
if the youngster has a tendency to cold feet, 
you had much better warm his bed with a 
hot-water bottle and let the small toes go 
bare; or, better than the bottle, warm his 
feet with a brisk rubbing. 

One blazing June day I remember visit- 
ing a diet kitchen in New York, one of the 
public stations where the poor may bring 
their infants for professional advice. An 
earnest young Italian mother came in, car- 
rying her offspring, gorgeous in all the rib- 
bon and cheap-lace finery that the mother 
could muster for the occasion. But appar- 
ently the offspring was most indifferent to 
the splendor of its appearance, for it 
howled in the most agonized manner, and 
without ceasing. 



72 MOTHERCRAFT 

" She ver' bad — ver' bad/' grieved the 
mother, evidently much alarmed. 

The nurse looked over the case. Then, 
" Take off those hot bootees," was her ver- 
dict. 

The mother was horrified. They were 
vividly pink, and they had tassels. This 
was cruelty. 

" Take off those bootees," repeated the 
nurse, and she repeated it twice more. In 
the end they came off — and the howls 
ceased ! 

That baby had been crying at the top 
of its lungs for over an hour, according to 
the mother's statement, and, as it proved, 
for no sickness or pain whatever, but be- 
cause its poor little feet were bundled on 
a June day — to satisfy the mother's vanity ! 
This is a simple but pertinent lesson in 
mothercraft, and it does not apply alone to 
the "ignorant classes," either. 

And when the days of the shoes come, 
beware ! Look at what you are buying with 



MOTHEKCKAFT 73 

the utmost care. The feet, in the forma- 
tive period of infancy, are easily pressed 
out of shape for a lifetime, to say nothing 
of being subjected to misery at the mo- 
ment. 

Look to see whether the shoe is too nar- 
row across the toe, pinching, and causing 
the toes to overlap. 

Look to see whether it is too low, that 
is, lacking space for the height of the foot 
so that the nails are driven in, becoming 
ingrowing. 

Look to see whether there are seams that 
will crease the tender flesh. There should 
be no seams whatever inside the shoes. 

Look to see whether the soles are of paper 
which will wear out quickly, and rub up 
into tormenting ridges. 

In the end you may find a little kid shoe 
with none of these defects, and you may 
purchase it with an easy mind. But you 
will be still wiser if you pass by even the 
best of the conventional type, and buy a 



74 MOTHERCRAFT 

pair of wee Indian moccasins instead. They 
are the ideal shoe for the baby to start out 
with; and after all, they are very appro- 
priate, for you dare not pretend that your 
offspring isn't a young barbarian, bless 
him! He wouldn't be the normal sort of 
baby if he were not. He has all the path 
of civilization to tread in the development 
of his individual soul. Did you ever hear 
that wonderful phrase in which modern 
science utters the whole philosophy of 
human life, tl The history of the individual 
is the history of the race"? 



CHAPTER IV 
FEATHERING THE NURSERY NEST 

SUPPOSE you are an advanced young 
woman of today. 

That's no reason why there shouldn't 
be a small dream tucked away deep down 
in your heart, is it? You being very "ad- 
vanced " the dream may become embar- 
rassed and sneak off when brought to light. 
But it's there, all the same. 

You are alert, practical, independent. 
You belong to the class called " middle," 
in which our highest values, physical, in- 
tellectual, and moral, abide. Your father 
is not rich, and a generation ago it would 
have been assumed that you would be " mar- 
ried off " after he had provided comfortably 
for your childhood and youth. At your ma- 
turity the burden of your support would 

75 



76 MOTHERCRAFT 

have normally shifted from his shoulders to 
those of a younger man. 

But this is another generation. The 
young man is slower in coming forward 
these days, and you cease waiting. You 
are between twenty-one and twenty-four 
years old, and you live in one of our larger 
cities; therefore, according to our govern- 
ment statistics, there are forty-four others 
of you in every hundred who become bread- 
winners. You may prepare to be a nurse, a 
secretary, a designer, a lawyer. But all 
the time, in hiding but persistent, there is 
the dream. 

Now suppose, just for instance, you have 
decided to be a teacher, and for that pur- 
pose have plunged into biology, or mathe- 
matics, or literature, at Teachers College, 
which is a part of Columbia University, in 
New York City. You are smothered in an 
atmosphere of learning; but, quite by acci- 
dent, you happen in at Room 414 in the 
School of Practical Arts, and there come 



MOTHERCRAFT 77 

upon the most unexpected sight. It is a 
class of girls before whom stands a small 
woman, her face full of the little upcurves 
that dwell in the faces of those who love 
gardens and birds and children. 

" The two things that a baby needs most 
of all," she is saying, " are fresh air and — 
more than fresh air — mothering." 

What's all this? That shy, stubborn lit- 
tle dream in the modern girl's heart sud- 
denly gives a great flap of its ridiculous 
fledgling wings. Here, in the midst of these 
corridors of sterner sciences, a class of girls 
is being taught how to mother babies ! And 
in spite of your advancement, and because 
of the mutinous flap of that undying little 
dream's wings, you register for the course. 

Ah, but there is no warfare between the 
modernism and the dream! The young 
woman of today may spend years in educa- 
tion ; she may even add to these more years 
of wage-earning; but time spent thus need 
mean nothing more alarming than mother- 



78 MOTHERCRAFT 

hood deferred. Instead of being alarming, 
in fact, it is the best thing that ever hap- 
pened to motherhood. Not only does the 
new ideal of motherhood demand a broader, 
deeper training along general lines; but it 
demands a highly specialized training along 
its own lines. 

By the back door, as it were, an actual 
mother-training course, and a wonderful 
one, has crept into one of our biggest and 
most formidable universities. When the 
great institution of Teachers College estab- 
lished, under Dr. Josephine Hemenway 
Kenyon, a course called " The Physical 
Care of Infants and Small Children," and 
put in charge of it later one of the foremost 
infant-welfare promoters of our country — 
namely, Dr. S. Josephine Baker,* of the New 
York Department of Health — it designed 
the course for the training of visiting, 
school, and welfare nurses. But I chal- 

* Since this chapter was written, Dr. Josephine Hem- 
enway Kenyon has resumed charge of her course. 



MOTHERCRAFT 79 

lenge any student to prove that she never 
once dreams of using her knowledge in a 
smaller, dearer empire than that of the pub- 
lic institution ; and I pray that there be not 
one who can deny such a charge ! 

The instructor pictures that empire, sum- 
mons a vision of it, and keeps it before you 
all the time that you are listening to these 
remarkable lectures, crammed full of 
weight-charts and teething, breast-feeding, 
and baths. Step by step she is leading her 
students to see the Ideal Nursery. 

First, before you furnish, you are led to 
see the room itself. You are to choose the 
happiest room in the house — one that is sun- 
flooded and air-swept. Best of all exposures 
is the south, and if to that another exposure 
can be added, so much the better. If you 
live in the city this may seem a difficult ideal 
to realize, but any trouble you may take to 
secure such an arrangement will be repaid 
you by the baby a thousand times over, in 
good health, good temper, and growth. 






80 MOTHERCRAFT 

You are taught that two primary laws 
should govern the equipment of the nurs- 
ery. 

One is the law of simplicity. 

The other is the law of cleanliness. 

The second depends upon the first. 

It is absolutely imperative that you 
should be able to take out and clean readily 
everything in the room. Therefore your 
furnishings must be simple. Ornate furni- 
ture, hosts of bric-a-brac and pictures, 
heavy draperies, may be of great use to the 
junkman ; but in the nursery their especial 
use is to gather dust, and microbes never 
feel more at home than in a cozy little heap 
of dust. It's a question of furnishing to 
suit the microbe or the baby. 

Simplicity demands only such furniture 
as is necessary. The nursery is no place 
for luxury in its usual form, which seems 
generally to be in the shape of heavy, 
plushy hangings and thick carpets. Let 
your luxury be that created by sunshine 



MOTHERCRAFT 81 

and good taste. Your floor should be of 
hard wood, or covered with linoleum; you 
may have pretty rugs, provided they be 
washable; the rag rugs used for cottages 
are good. And your own, or the nurse's, 
single bed, the baby's crib, the low, rocker- 
less chair where you sit to bathe him, the 
armless rocking-chair where you occasion- 
ally (never regularly) rock him, another 
chair or two, the chiffonier, where the robes 
of royalty are kept, the little washstand or 
toilet-table, the rack for airing his clothes 
— every one of these, though absolutely sim- 
ple, may be pretty. White-painted wood is 
excellent for most of these pieces; the bed 
and crib may be of white enamel or brass 
or willow. Add to the above-mentioned 
objects a hospital screen of white linen 
panels mounted on a white wooden frame, 
and you have an outfit that is complete, 
simple, charming, and above all, washable. 
No sanely human scientist could ever 
urge that your nursery should look like the 



82 MOTHERCEAFT 

operating-room in a hospital. The in- 
structor tells you that a few pictures may 
relieve the bareness of the walls; only, she 
begs, let them be few, that they may be 
easily taken down and dusted. You may 
carry out a color scheme of your own 
choice; and your curtains may just as well 
be pretty as ugly. In short, let your per- 
sonality creep into the arrangement of the 
room. 

There are very important psychological 
reasons why the child should find himself 
in an environment of subtle taste and 
beauty at the period of first impressions. 
The consciousness of what it sees comes to 
a baby before its first half-year has elapsed, 
and from that time onward the pictures 
upon which its physical eye has been rest- 
ing make a more and more keen impression 
upon the brain, growing so vivid, as child- 
hood advances, that they remain mentally 
visual throughout life. All of us can recol- 
lect distinct pictures of the surroundings 



MOTHEKCRAFT 83 

of our childhood, while later environments 
rapidly grow dim. 

Therefore, choose carefully for your baby 
the environment that is to create his first 
impression of the world in which he is to 
live. It may be as beautiful as you desire 
so long as you never deviate from that vital 
law of Simplicity. 

By way of simplicity you achieve clean- 
liness. There are other factors in cleanli- 
ness, though; sun and fresh air are better 
cleansers than any mop. Here are other 
points to lay aside for the future: 

The perfect nursery is built without cor- 
ners, being rounded in all places where a 
corner would naturally be. This is for ex- 
actly the same reason that sanitary milk- 
pans and babies' bottles are rounded; 
namely, because germs, like the traditional 
pussy, want a corner. The walls and floor 
of the room can be kept absolutely clean if 
rounded. But, realizing that you may have 
to make the best of what you have, you will 



84 MOTHERCKAFT 

naturally reflect that millions of babies 
have lived to a ripe old age in spite of right- 
angled nurseries, and you will merely re- 
double your efforts to banish the germs. 

The walls of the room should be painted 
during the days of infancy. There is no 
reason for depriving the little folks of de- 
lightful wall-papers later on — they always 
take a keen pleasure in the warmth of a 
figured and daintily tinted paper; but dur- 
ing the extremely susceptible weeks when 
the child is first facing the world, excessive 
cleanliness is his safeguard, and the advan- 
tage of the painted wall is that it can be 
washed. Hard paint should coat the wood- 
work, for it, too, must come in for a scrub- 
bing. In fact, the law of cleanliness de- 
mands that everything in the nursery 
should, as far as possible, be washable. 

There are two elements in his physical 
surroundings to which the baby is es- 
pecially sensitive, and these are sound and 
light. The arrangement of the nursery 



MOTHERCRAFT 85 

should take this fact into consideration. 
For the first day or two of life the infant 
is deaf, owing to a stoppage caused by 
mucus ; after this, the hearing is abnor- 
mally acute. Therefore, the nursery should 
be at the quietest end of the house. A 
young baby hears so keenly and sleeps so 
lightly that very slight noises rouse him, 
and he may pay throughout a lifetime for 
nervous disturbances in infancy. The 
teacher of this class asserts that the first 
year is the most important period of life; 
that serious nervous ailments during that 
time are almost never totally overcome. 
For this reason, she pleads for quiet on the 
baby's behalf, for peaceful sleep, uninter- 
rupted by either accidental noises or — hor- 
ror of horrors! — that worse than senseless 
custom of waking and startling a baby by 
facetious clappings and booings. The neu- 
rotic adult can trace his wretchedness in 
thousands of cases to an unquiet babyhood. 
The ideal nursery should be kept in semi- 



86 MOTHERCRAFT 

darkness until the weakness of the very 
young eyes passes. Dark green or dark tan 
window shades should soften the light ; it is 
advisable, however, to have two sets of 
shades, light and dark. There should be no 
window draperies except a simple muslin 
curtain, fastened to the sash so that it can 
be raised with the window, thus affording 
freedom for the passage of air. 

Also for the sake of the eyes, extremely 
light or glaring tints on the walls should 
be avoided. Tan is an excellent color, both 
for artistic and hygienic reasons. 

The heating of the nursery, you are 
taught, is a matter of the utmost impor- 
tance. As the heating arrangements of any 
house are installed with difficulty and ex- 
pense, you will probably have to accept for 
the nursery whatever kind of warmth is al- 
ready there — steam passing through coils, 
hot air entering through registers, possibly 
a base-burner stove. Any one of these can 
be made satisfactory, provided it is in good 



MOTHEKCRAFT 87 

order, but this point is essential; a sensi- 
tive baby must not be subjected to the 
caprices of a furnace which draws well one 
day, and at a change of the weather-cock 
on the next flirts with bronchitis by not 
drawing at all. Let the heat be abundant 
and regular; then regulate it to the exact 
temperature your nursery requires, which 
is about 66 to 68 degrees by day, and 60 
degrees by night. The latter part of this 
rule obtains, however, for only the first 
four months or thereabouts. After that, 
the cold sleeping-room is to be introduced 
gradually. You begin, if the weather is 
cold, by using the simple window-board, 
which affords a slight crack between the 
two sashes and gives a ventilation superior 
to that of any artificial system, according 
to a specialist. 

The extremes of virtue and viciousness in 
heating are to be found in the open fire and 
the gas-stove. No warmth is as near per- 
fection as that radiating from the fireplace 



88 MOTHERCRAFT 

which possesses a good draft; and none as 
pernicious as that created by the burning 
gas. The latter devours the oxygen, leav- 
ing only exhausted air for the baby. 

Now for the details of the nursery fur- 
nishings. First and foremost the crib 
stands forth, being the only piece of furni- 
ture that interests His Majesty during his 
first weeks. He must be allowed to sleep in 
peace, and he must sleep alone. 

Over and over again the lecturer who is 
conducting this course urges upon her stu- 
dents the fact that the first requisite in the 
care of a baby is mothering. It gives you 
new hope to hear her ; it makes you feel 
that, after all, Science is not the grim old 
party he is supposed to be. She tells you 
that one-half of the babies in foundling asy- 
lums die within the first year. 

Isn't that a sad and a wonderful fact? 

They are treated with all the knowledge 
that science has to offer; still they die. 
They are not mothered. 



MOTHEECRAFT 89 

And because mothering is the foundation 
of her creed, she pleads that a baby be 
taken into its mother's bed now and then, 
for the sake of both. She protests against 
the science that would rob the world of 
every human impulse. But for all this, she 
urges the right of every baby to its own bed 
for sleeping purposes. The visiting nurse 
in the tenement, even, insists upon this; 
she shows Mrs. Shapiro and Mrs. O'Flah- 
erty how to fit up a soap-box or a bureau 
drawer. Never, except on brief visits, is 
the baby to lie in its mother's bed. It 
must sleep in the perfect quiet of solitude. 

The bed should be washable, and should 
be equipped with a hair mattress, a rubber 
pad, a small hair pillow, cotton sheets, and 
blankets of three-quarters wool. The metal 
crib should have high, sliding sides and nar- 
row spaces between the bars. 

Of next importance is the toilet-table, or 
its substitute. The shops display all sorts 
of sane and insane types; some of the 



90 MOTHERCRAFT 

former include a fitted-in washbowl and 
pitchers, the latter are adorned with irri-< 
tating and germ-harboring gewgaws. Noth- 
ing is better than a white table which can 
be easily moved and cleaned; near it, a 
corner shelf is convenient for the reserve 
supply of toilet requisites. 

During the " Nursery " course you find 
yourself thoroughly drilled in every item 
of the baby's toilet equipment, its use, and 
the reasons for its use, from the physician's 
standpoint. First, you are warned always 
to choose the purest soap, preferably the 
best quality of Castile, for the infant's skin 
is unduly sensitive. A bottle containing 
the boric-acid solution must be at hand. 
This is used to allay slight inflammations 
— for instance, of the eyes. Beside it 
should be a roll of absorbent cotton. In 
case of irritation of the eyes, the cotton is 
to be dipped into the solution, which is 
dripped, by gentle squeezing, into the eye, 
the child being held in such a position that 



MOTHEECRAFT 91 

the water will run toward the outer corner 
and thus avoid the risk of carrying infec- 
tion to the other eye. A glass should be 
kept for the solution, so that you may never 
have to dip into the bottle directly. All 
dregs left in the glass and every bit of used 
cotton should be thrown away. 

A bundle of wooden toothpicks should be 
at hand. A bit of the aseptic cotton 
wrapped on the end of a toothpick is used 
to cleanse the nostrils — not the ears. Ran- 
dom poking about in a poor baby's ears is 
a medieval torture. If it is necessary to 
cleanse the mouth, wrap some cotton about 
your little finger, dip it in plain water, and 
wash the gums with exceeding gentleness; 
but this should be done only when particles 
of the food adhere. There is a pronounced 
reaction nowadays among pediatricians 
against the frequent washing of the mouth 
which was so strongly advocated some years 
ago. The danger of infection is too great. 
In naming several causes of totally unneces- 



92 MOTHERCRAFT 

sary deaths among infants, Dr. Abraham 
Jacobi has included " the improper rinsing 
of the mouth." 

The talcum powder — unperfumed — must 
be at hand, to prevent chafing in the creases 
of the plump little body; and a supply of 
vaseline and stearate of zinc should be kept 
in case the chafing should become serious 
and more serious. Liquid vaseline may oc- 
casionally be used in the nostrils in case 
of a catarrhal cold, and listerine is a valu- 
able first aid to the injured who may have 
met disaster in the malicious scratch of a 
safety-pin. And because we have not yet 
learned to dispense with that friendly foe, 
an ample supply of these pins should help 
equip the toilet-table. 

The soft little brush — hardly less soft 
than the ridiculous hair it caresses — may 
be accompanied by a tiny comb, which will 
be needed in case the hair is thick enough 
to tangle. 

And as for the bath — that most thrilling 



MOTHERCRAFT 93 

event in all the twenty-four hours — a 
proper outfit, combined with trained skill 
in the art of hygienically bathing a baby, 
ought to make it one of the happiest of hap- 
penings. Either it should be merry and 
stimulating — the morning bath; or sooth- 
ing — at bedtime. The subject of correct 
bathing for infants is subtle and complex, 
and includes many varieties of the three 
main forms — the cleansing, the stimulat- 
ing, and the quieting bath. Temperatures, 
health conditions, the correct way to hold 
the child, and many other points, must be 
understood, and they form a big topic 
which is covered in other lectures. But in 
the study of hygienic nursery furnishings 
you learn to provide a full equipment for 
these baths. 

Two basins are needed, one for the warm 
water, the other for the cool bath which 
follows. A deep, oblong basin, partitioned 
across the center, is convenient. Knitted 
washcloths should be used for the body, 



94 MOTHERCRAFT 

cheese-cloth or old linen for the face. Have 
plenty of Turkish towels for drying the 
baby's body; soft, damask towels for pat- 
ting dry the face; enough washcloths to af- 
ford one to each basin and fresh ones for 
every bath ; and a soft bath-blanket, or your 
own bath-apron, to receive the young Nep- 
tune when he emerges from the water. The 
apron may be made of flannel gathered 
upon a waist-band, on the lines of the ordi- 
nary kitchen-apron; or a knitted one may 
be purchased, fleeced with a soft nap of 
cotton on the front side. The latter is ab- 
sorbent and does not shrink. 

A word on the subject of sponges. 

Don't! 

The time-honored sponge is absolutely 
non-cleansable ; it is a honeycomb of pas- 
sages and cells where germs may skulk. 
Even the tiny sponge attached to a cellu- 
loid handle and designed for cleansing the 
ears and the nostrils is unclean. The bit 
of cotton is thrown away after using, but 



MOTHERCRAFT 95 

this tiny sponge may cherish and nourish 
infection. 

As a finishing touch to the toilet outfit, 
have a bottle of alcohol upon the toilet- 
table, ready to add a stimulus to the cool 
morning bath now and then, if your doctor 
approves. A little alcohol added to the 
water serves as a mild tonic. 

The scales are an important item in the 
equipment of the complete nursery. The 
best, which cost about twenty dollars, have 
a platform and scoop at one end; these are 
chosen by physicians for their accuracy. 
But a very fair substitute can be purchased 
for one-third the price — a pretty little af- 
fair of white enamel, with an alluring 
basket for the baby. And for one dollar the 
simple scales, with a ring at one end and a 
hook at the other, can be had. Sling a 
large diaper, with the crowing victim 
therein, to the hook, and get an accurate 
weight. 

The weight-chart must accompany the 



96 MOTHERCRAFT 

scales. You can block out your own on a 
sheet of paper, or buy one which gives an 
average infant's line, tracing the weight 
from birth downward through the loss dur- 
ing the first days, then upward as the 'in- 
crease mounts. One such chart gives the 
line based upon 10,000 observations by that 
famous pediatrician, Dr. L. Emmet Holt, 
and has spaces mapped out for records of 
diet and dentition on the back. This is 
thoroughly reliable and very convenient. 
The average line gives you a fair idea of 
about where your own baby's weight should 
be, day by day; nevertheless, be warned 
against considering this line of undue im- 
portance. Not how much he weighs, but 
how much he gains, is the important point ; 
and even this may be misleading, for im- 
proper food sometimes causes a fatness 
and consequent rise in weight that makes 
trouble in the end. 

A record-book should be on hand, for an 
accurate report of feeding, growth, and ab- 



MOTHERCRAFT 97 

normalities. These details are to assist the 
physician in case of illness. He has some 
data to guide him if you can turn to a cer- 
tain page and show just what formula was 
followed at a certain time. Under the head 
" Feeding " should be recorded the inter- 
vals, the details of weaning, every artificial 
food ever used, with dates, particulars of 
changes, and reasons for changes ; also, any 
symptom relating to feeding, as " gas " or 
" constipation." 

Under " Growth " your book should re- 
cord the baby's length at birth, the red- 
letter dates upon which it first held up the 
imperious head, first grasped for objects, 
and so on. This is not all sentiment. Your 
physician may be much helped by such in- 
formation, which sometimes throws light on 
questions of muscular weakness and mental 
trouble. 

" Abnormalities " is a dreadful word. 
But take courage, and approach it. Its 
bark is worse than its bite. It is merely a 



98 MOTHEKCKAFT 

doctor's way of telling you to keep a com- 
plete record of illness, with dates, and de- 
tails of any simple home remedies used. 

The instructor of this class may be an 
idealist, but she is an idealist with a sense 
of humor. You find this out day by day, as 
she touches upon the extreme views of some 
most eminent scientists. " A common sense 
middle path between neglect and overeat," 
is her watchword. You observe the twinkle 
in her astute eye as she describes the nurs- 
ery housekeeping recommended by some 
pediatricians. Only a sterilized person 
should enter the nursery under any circum- 
stances, say the extremists, and such a per- 
son should wear a special gown and gloves, 
to be put on at the door. The tenement baby 
has a better chance, according to her, than 
the baby reared on superaseptic theories. 
Nevertheless, she recommends that the 
ruler of the nursery be taken forth if he is 
to be interviewed by strangers, rather than 
receive them on his throne; without wish- 



MOTHERCRAFT 99 

ing to live in undue awe of the germ, it 
must at least be heeded. And because of 
this needful heed, she has a word to say on 
the subject of infants' toys. They must be 
washable, they must be washed daily, and 
they must be tied to crib or carriage so that 
they can't fall to the floor. For all is fish, 
so to speak, that comes to the baby's mouth. 
Rubber or celluloid dangles and rattles 
are washable, and are suitable for the baby 
during the days when he tries the taste of 
everything that comes his way. Incident- 
ally, bells should be avoided, or any small 
ornaments lightly attached, for they have 
an ingenious way of coming off and follow- 
ing the example of Jonah. The squeak has 
been found to come out of certain squeak- 
ing toys, and has made its way down more 
than one throat. The cutting-ring, in par- 
ticular, must be kept immaculate ; it should 
be made of hard rubber or ivory (a hard 
cracker is sold for this purpose, too) and 
tied so that it can't touch the floor. 



100 MOTHERCRAFT 

The pacifier comes under the same cate- 
gory as the sponge, and can be dismissed in 
the same way by the one word, " Don't ! " 
If one word to the wise is not sufficient, 
then here are several words, which should be 
enough to cause the pacifier to be omitted 
from your shopping list for the Complete 
Nursery. In the first place, it is slovenly, 
for it falls repeatedly to the floor. It is 
a lazy means of stopping crying, when the 
real cause should be investigated. It makes 
the lips sore. It may deform the mouth per- 
manently. And, above all, it is one of the 
foremost producers of adenoids. 

Although the carriage is not intended for 
nursery use, it is often wheeled about there, 
on stormy days when the baby cannot be 
taken out, but mlnst be dressed for the 
street and given an indoor, open-windowed 
outing instead, and it may as well be pur- 
chased along with the nursery equipment. 
The decree of science is against the very 
low go-cart for the young baby; although 



MOTHEKCRAFT 101 

convenient to handle it brings the child too 
close to the dust and its microbes, besides 
causing it to sit up too long. A simple, 
high carriage is better until six months 
have elapsed; the simpler it is, the more 
cleanly it will be. An adjustable hood 
should be ready to shade the weak eyes of 
infancy, and there should be an adjustable 
seat which can be put in after the baby is 
old enough to use it. At first, the carriage 
is merely a bed on wheels. 

And now the baby can justly declare his 
house in order — this house o' dreams which 
a scientist has been conjuring before you. 
And when the dream comes true it will be 
for you, oh, Young Woman of Today! — 
with all the science of the mother of to- 
morrow, with all the love of the mother of 
yesterday — to prove a worthy keeper of that 
house. 



CHAPTER V 
FEEDING THE NEW BABY 

IT was a bewitching little smilax-gar- 
landed lunch-table, a delicious pink- 
and-green lunch. Nothing was lacking 
except the really important guest. " Why 
doesn't Dr. Hedger come? " our hostess 
plaintively murmured, again and again. As 
we passed slowly on, from tomato bisque 
to strawberry-and-mint ice, her eye roved 
ever toward the door, but Dr. Caroline 
Hedger did not appear. 

Then, in a body, the lunch-party — being 
a party with a purpose — went over to Dr. 
Hedger's office, which is in a huge office- 
building in Chicago. She met us with 
hands in the air, a horror-stricken expres- 
sion on her rosy, wholesome face. 

" I forgot all about the lunch-party ! " 

102 



MOTHEKCRAFT 103 

she cried frankly. " I sent the boy out for 
a sandwich, and worked here all noon- 
time." Then, triumphantly, " I was work- 
ing out a great improvement in feeding 
babies ! " 

As a matter of fact, the party had been 
arranged so that Dr. Hedger might tell us 
about her work, but she was so busy doing 
that work that she forgot to talk about it. 
Let us pause to digest this incident. 

And now, to proceed. This is what Dr. 
Hedger has done for the great, grim city of 
Chicago. She, working through that won- 
derful institution, the Woman's City Club, 
has organized a School of Mothercraft 
which, in only a little more than a year's 
time, enrolled two hundred mothers, who 
regularly attended its free courses in six 
centers scattered over the city. In direct 
charge of all these centers is Mrs. Frederick 
Cleveland Test, who was a practicing phy- 
sician herself until she had so many babies 
of her own that she had to take down her 



104 MOTHERCRAFT 

sign and practice on them. Those two 
women are making history, not only in 
Chicago, but in all parts of the country 
where the profession of motherhood is 
being recognized. 

Lessons are given by the most skilled 
physicians, nurses, and teachers obtainable ; 
lessons in the things a mother should know, 
from the days w T hen the first far-away flap- 
ping of the stork's wings is heard, through 
the period of birth and infancy. But the 
subject upon which the heaviest stress is 
laid is: Feeding the Baby. 

It is the most vital of all matters con- 
nected with the care of a child. What those 
Chicago mothers are learning, every mother 
in the United States ought to know. 

First and foremost, the slogan is : Nurse 
your baby. 

This is so simple a rule, and it has been 
recited so often, that it may appear super- 
fluous. But the greatest pediatricians say 
that it is not superfluous. They claim that 



MOTHERCRAFT 105 

it cannot be repeated often enough, so 
necessary is it that mothers should fully 
realize its importance. Statistics have 
shown that ten artificially fed babies die 
to one naturally fed. 

The School of Mothercraft, in enunciat- 
ing this rule, does not mean that there are 
to be no exceptions to it. But it does insist 
that only extreme special cases justify arti- 
ficial feeding. No matter how subtle and 
scientific is the present process of modify- 
ing cow's milk, it cannot compare with the 
oldest process of feeding known. 

This is what Dr. Hedger says to a mother : 
" If you are a healthy, normal woman, 
nature is modifying the food every day to 
meet the child's changing needs." 

The subject is worthy of thought. So 
subtle a chemist, so wise an old mother is 
this nature of ours, that she is constantly 
on the lookout for the baby's new demands, 
and modifying, or remixing its food to 
meet those demands. No science, no per- 



106 MOTHERCRAFT 

centage formulas, can keep up with 
her. 

There are many incidental advantages 
in the natural method of feeding. One is 
the protection it affords against contagious 
diseases, especially whooping-cough and 
scarlet fever. Do not take this as an un- 
qualified statement. Your child may con- 
tract the diseases, even while he is being 
nursed, but his chances of resisting them 
are far better if he is fed by his mother. 
Other minor reasons for its superiority are 
multitudinous. But the fundamental rea- 
son is that this is the method provided by 
Nature, and she knows what she is about. 

Here is the next simple truth insisted on 
by this school (the teachers are all big peo- 
ple, and big people are never afraid to be 
simple) : Healthy mothers are those best 
fitted to nurse their babies. Therefore, 
the self-evident deduction is: Be healthy! 

Now there is plenty to be said about the 
mother's diet, her bathing, and all the 



MOTHBRCRAFT 107 

other items of her bodily care; but there 
are specialists who dare assert that her 
mental care is of no less importance. This 
is a bold statement, and when I pinned one 
of these specialists down with it, she hesi- 
tated; then she made the plunge. 

" The nervous environment of the nurs- 
ing mother is quite as important as her 
diet, and I'm not sure but the day will 
come when I shall say it is more impor- 
tant." 

Another pediatrician says : " A physician 
can't even advise a mother as to her diet 
and living conditions in general until he 
has made a thorough study of her psychic 
condition, her mental attitude." 

Think of all that this means! It is a 
tradition as old as history that terrible 
fright or sudden bereavement or any great 
shock may check or wreck a mother's milk. 
But there are other causes more far-reaching 
than these. To insure perfect food for the 
child, your mental hygiene must be perfect. 



108 MOTHERCRAFT 

The little ugly thoughts that spring like 
weeds in a mind must be pulled up. Little 
hates, jealousies, resentments, self-pities, 
fears, depressions — do you realize that if 
these thoughts are in your system you are, 
in a sense, feeding them to your child? 
That is, they are lowering your own vitality 
by being left to grow in the garden-plot of 
your mind, and your child's condition tends 
to follow yours. 

All of this does not mean that, because 
of the importance of mental health, you are 
to relax vigilance over your body. Look 
to every detail. The diet which has always 
agreed with you is the one for you now — 
that is, as a general rule. Let your physi- 
cian tell you what exceptions your case re- 
quires. Fewer bogies are held up to terrify 
the mother than in old days. Regulate 
your system by a wholesome and varied 
diet rather than by drugs. Take regular 
exercise, but do not overdo it, just because 
you hear its importance emphasized so 



MOTHERCEAFT 109 

often. Exercise and eat just about as you 
have always done. 

Now for the baby. This Chicago school, 
following among its advising pediatricians 
Dr. C. G. Grulee, is advocating the long 
interval between feedings. Based on much 
experience, both in private practice and in 
infant-hospital work, Dr. Grulee recom- 
mends a four-hour interval. Whether this 
time be a trifle shortened or not, regularity 
must be insisted upon. You yourself would 
be a cross-grained dyspeptic if your dinner 
were at five-thirty one day, six-thirty the 
next, and eight the day following. Be as 
accurate as the clock and as firm as Gibral- 
tar, in keeping His Imperious Majesty to 
exact hours. He won't like it at first; he 
will assert himself, and loudly; but your 
own tact will teach you how to divert him 
a little until his feeding-time comes. 

Advocates of the long interval argue, and 
with reason, that the little stomach is not 
emptied in a short time, and that it is in- 



110 MOTHEKCRAFT 

jurious to add fresh food to that which is 
still but partially digested. They advise 
the hours of two, six, and ten o'clock, a.m. 
and p.m. There are thus six feedings in 
twenty-four hours during the first month. 
After that, one night feeding, given at mid- 
night, is enough. By prescribing these far- 
apart feedings, advocates of the method 
have rescued many an ailing baby that was 
being fed every two hours, and this prac- 
tical demonstration has built up their be- 
lief in the rule. 

It is hard to adopt the four-hour method 
if you have already formed a habit of feed- 
ing the child frequently. But remember 
that often the baby is only thirsty, not 
hungry, when he cries, and a little boiled 
water will satisfy him. And if it doesn't — 
oh, I know how weary nerves weaken, all 
unstrung as they are. But giving way to 
them now means worse suffering for mother 
and child later. 

Discipline is an austere-sounding word 



MOTHERCRAFT 111 

to use in connection with a tiny baby, but 
it is true that discipline ought to begin on 
the day the baby is born. This means that 
every regular proceeding should be firmly 
adhered to, for the sake of both mother and 
child. You have not the right to indulge 
little whims, such as the capricious tasting 
of a meal, then a brief nap, then another 
tasting. Teach your child to take all that 
he needs at one feeding, which should not 
be longer than twenty minutes, at the most; 
then, to wait until next meal-time. It 
sounds almost cruelly stern, but you will 
have a happier baby in the end. 

Here is something that a trained nurse 
told me : " It seems impossible, but half the 
mothers I meet ignore the proper position 
in which to hold their babies when feeding 
them. They do not realize that the hand 
should be so placed as to give the baby full 
freedom for breathing. Of so simple, so 
obvious a matter as this, they say they 
have never thought ! " 



112 MOTHERCRAFT 

She told me something further : " Moth- 
ers feed their babies, then they hold them 
up, perhaps even dance them, toss them — 
and wonder why the poor little stomach 
doesn't retain its nourishment! Lay the 
baby down after each meal, watch it nestle, 
hear it purr, until it dozes off — and solve 
the problem ! " 

At last, when His Majesty reaches the 
advanced age of nine months or there- 
abouts, the much-dreaded process of wean- 
ing occurs. The natural food no longer 
meets the requirements of his sturdy body. 
He needs more iron, for one thing. The 
best way to make the change is to make it 
all at once, giving the bottle entirely. If 
you are in the midst of hot weather you 
may be obliged to wait a little beyond the 
nine months, but you should never let a 
child go past its first year without being 
weaned. If you have now and then given 
it water from a bottle, it will take more 
kindly to the new method. And, if yours 



MOTHERCRAFT 113 

has been a well-governed baby for nine 
months, he isn't going to make such a 
dreadful fuss about the change, because 
the habit of obedience is already formed in 
him. 

When we come to the laws of artificial 
feeding, they look at first glance like an ap- 
palling chapter of " Don'ts ! " " Don't use 
cane-sugar," " Don't boil the milk," " Don't 
use infant foods of which you know 
nothing," and so on, until you wonder if 
they will wind up with, " Don't feed your 
poor baby at all ! " But when you step into 
the tenement quarter of any city, and see a 
baby being quieted with a sausage, and 
then into a half-million-dollar residence, 
and find an infant in French hand- 
embroidery being pacified with a soothing- 
syrup which contains one of the most 
deadly drugs, you come to the conclusion 
that, from sausage to soothing-syrup, 
" Don'ts " are needed everywhere. 

Suppose the physician in charge has 



114 MOTHERCRAFT 

ordered an artificial diet. He may do this 
for any one of several reasons. Insufficient 
supply of natural food is the commonest 
of these, although many find that in such a 
case a mixed diet is better than no natural 
food at all. Certain forms of ill health in 
the mother necessitate the weaning of her 
child. If she should be suffering from an 
acute infectious disease; if she should be 
very weak; if she should be the victim of 
certain very serious chronic diseases, the 
bottle may be ordered. Now the first 
requisite of artificial food is that it be the 
closest possible imitation of natural food; 
and that is found in modifications of cow's 
milk. 

Choose the milk your baby is to live 
upon as if the choice were a sacred cere- 
mony. If you can't have a personal intro- 
duction to the cows intrusted with the 
grave responsibility of feeding your off- 
spring, at least know something of the 
dairy. Be sure that it is clean, that clean 



MOTHERCRAFT 115 

methods in milking are employed, that 
the milk is yielded by health, grain- or 
grass-fed cows, that it contains no pre- 
servative, that it is as fresh as possible 
(twenty- four hours is all that really should 
elapse between the cow and the baby), and 
that it comes from a herd, not from a single 
cow, chances of harm from one animal be- 
ing lessened in a mixed product. 

Like all good rules, this last has its ex- 
ception. If you are able yourself to keep 
one good cow, whose milk you know agrees 
with the child, then you will do well to 
continue the use of that product. Avoid 
the fancy breeds, as they have a tendency 
to disease, and their milk is too rich. The 
milk of a Holstein is best for the baby, 
being the most nearly similar to the nat- 
ural; other common-grade cows, such as 
Devon and Durham, are good. 

Cow's milk undiluted cannot be fed to a 
young child, for the simple reason that it 
is nature's food for a calf, not a baby. But 



116 MOTHERCRAFT 

mix the right ingredients with it and you 
have a safe and nourishing food. Don't 
expect your baby, however, to become the 
young Sandow T he might become on the 
preferred diet. He won't, other things be- 
ing equal, gain as fast; but he will get on. 

When your physician has advised you as 
to the best combination for mixing your 
child's food, obey his prescription to the 
letter, for what's one baby's meat may be 
the next baby's poison. 

Your physician will recognize the in- 
dividual needs of your child. Then make 
ready your little laboratory outfit, for the 
preparation of this food is a serious affair. 
So delicately constructed is the mechanism 
of the tiny body that a slight mistake may 
be a life-or-death matter. Germs of which 
you would never be conscious in your own 
system may be fatal to the baby. Absolute 
cleanliness — by that I mean cleanliness as 
a surgeon, not a cook, would use the term — 
is essential. Even the most scrupulous 



MOTHERCRAFT 117 

housewife seldom realizes the full meaning 
of this word. Simple washing is not sterili- 
zation. You insure safety by making it a 
rule that no utensil used in this food prep- 
aration shall be used for anything else. 

You will need a large pan for mixing, 
one which holds at least two quarts; a 
pitcher; a double boiler; a large spoon; a 
funnel ; a graduating-glass ; a bottle brush ; 
bottles and nipples. Granite-ware, china, 
porcelain, glass, are the most cleanly mate- 
rials; they do not rust. Every sharp angle 
and corner should be avoided in selecting 
the shapes ; these harbor dirt, which means 
germs. Curves cannot conceal dirt. 

The funnel should have a neck small 
enough to be inserted in the bottle. The 
bottle should be all curves, and with shoul- 
ders as sloping as those of a fashionable 
figure; this shape permits the brush to 
scour every portion. Until you shop for 
bottles you will not realize how many bad 
ones there are, hard to clean, and full of 



118 MOTHERCRAFT 

dirt-hiding corners. The nipples should be 
of the best rubber, so that they will not 
crack. Cracks harbor infection, and there 
is really more danger from them than from 
the bottles. 

Each morning enough food should be 
prepared to last twenty-four hours. You 
will need as many bottles as there are to be 
feedings, namely, six, for the same rule of 
the four-hour interval is to be followed in 
artificial feeding. When you have pre- 
pared the whole amount of the twenty-four 
hours' food, fill the bottles, seal them with 
plugs of sterilized cotton, and place them 
on ice, or in a thoroughly cold spot. The 
nipple is not to be put on until the time of 
use. 

No milk must ever be allowed to sour in 
the bottles; as soon as they are emptied, 
cleanse them and stopper them until the 
next food-preparing time. Then go at them 
with the brush and soapsuds, rinse them 
again, and boil them for a quarter of an 







■ . :..' .■ . : 



Photograph taken under the auspices of the New York Diet Kitchen Association, 

Cleansing a bottle with the bottle-brush. The 
small pan and pure white soap have been used 
in the first cleansing: the large pan will be 
used for boiling the bottles. 



MOTHERCRAFT 119 

hour. Dry them on the outside only. When 
filled, close the necks with sterilized cotton, 
a barricade which the unseen enemies of the 
baby cannot pass. The nipples, too, must be 
cleansed as soon as they have been used; 
they are more dangerous than the bottles if 
left with milk in them. Once a day turn 
them inside out, scrub them with a stiff 
brush, boil them ; when not in use let them 
lie in a solution of boric acid, one teaspoon- 
ful to a pint of water. 

Tell your physician exactly what is the 
source of the milk you use, and let him de- 
cide whether you must take the precaution 
of pasteurizing or sterilizing it. The for- 
mer process requires that the milk be 
brought to a temperature of 150 degrees 
and kept there for thirty minutes ; to steril- 
ize, the milk must be brought to boiling- 
point. The double boiler is used. The 
pasteurizing can be done after the milk is 
modified. 

If any water is to be used in mixing, 



120 MOTHERCRAFT 

sterilize it. Whatever the diluent used 
with the milk, it should always be cold 
before mixing. Barley-water and oatmeal- 
water may be made up in quantities, to 
last for three days if kept cold all of that 
time. The rule for making barley-water is : 
To one quart of water add one teaspoonful 
of barley-flour and one-half of a teaspoonful 
of salt. Boil over a slow fire until the mix- 
ture is reduced to half; then add enough 
water to equal one quart. If you are using 
one of the infant foods, it can be dissolved 
in tepid water, perhaps even in cold; and 
so can the sugar. The latter is never cane- 
sugar, you remember, but milk or malt- 
sugar. If malt-extract is used, bring it to a 
boil. And, by the way, although doctors 
disagree on the subject of the sugars, this 
Chicago school preaches malt-sugar. Ex- 
perience has convinced the instructors that 
it causes less indigestion than the other 
and this experience is gleaned from many 
babies. 



MOTHEKCRAFT 121 

When you take out a fresh bottle for 
feeding, you must warm it to blood heat 
only; never let it be hot. This is done by 
placing it in hot water. A simple rule for 
testing its warmth is to squeeze out a few 
drops on your wrist; they should feel 
warm, not hot. 

A word to the wise about dyspepsia; 
many a baby has been cured of colic by its 
manner of feeding being changed from the 
short to the long interval method. Over- 
feeding is at the bottom of most of these 
cases. Of course, if the matter is serious, 
you must consult a physician; but observ- 
ance of simple hygienic rules will accom- 
plish so much ! The colic-y baby may need 
nothing more professional than a fresh-air 
treatment. Does he sleep with a window 
open? A well-freshened sleeping-room is at 
its best when it becomes outdoors. Does he 
have an alcohol rub following his daily bath? 

Another word to the wise: don't lay un- 
due stress upon the matter of weight. It 



122 MOTHERCRAFT 

has blinded many a mother to a child's 
dangers; it has alarmed many another 
without cause. All other growth being 
proportional, the increase of weight is the 
gauge of a baby's improvement; but so 
many times other growth is not in its true 
proportion! Fattening foods may be those 
most indigestible to the child. Certain 
oversweetened condensed milks are posi- 
tively harmful, furnishing far too much 
sugar to the little stomach; and yet, after 
its use, the scales report an astounding 
gain. Overfeeding often produces an exces- 
sive weight with direful consequences. Dr. 
Grulee states that " the attempt to produce 
weight by more and more food causes more 
fatalities than bacteria and hot weather 
combined." And he adds, " The baby who 
is extremely fat at the end of the first year 
suffers from attacks of gastro-intestinal 
disturbance during the second to pay for 
overtaxing of the digestive functions." 
The system of far-apart feedings, which 



MOTHERCRAFT 123 

is now arousing much interest among pedi- 
atricians the country over, is said to have 
originated in Germany, where it has pro- 
duced excellent results. Cleveland, Ohio, 
has adopted it to such an extent that, in 
this city, there are thousands of experi- 
ments to judge from ; it has been proved an 
undoubted success. New York has made 
rather unsuccessful attempts to introduce 
the method, finding the mothers unwilling 
to make the effort required to " break in " 
a baby to this new habit. This seems the 
only difficulty; where babies have been 
kept strictly to the rule, they have thrived. 
Chicago is preaching the doctrine not only 
through this School of Mothercraft, but in 
the Infant Welfare Society, whose nurses, 
in one year, make more than thirty-five 
thousand visits to the homes where babies 
live. Not only is the baby benefited by this 
method, but the mother who nurses her 
child with difficulty is assisted by a longer 
rest between feeding-times. 



124 MOTHERCRAFT 

When it comes to artificial feeding, this 
school is opposed to the elaborate percent- 
age method so much in vogue a while ago; 
and in other cities, too, we find much re- 
action against that system. By it, a pre- 
scription for each child's food was studied 
as if it had been a medicine, and formu- 
lated with the most appalling nicety. 
Specialists are simplifying the matter now- 
adays, and, although the individual baby 
must be considered, hair-splitting is grow- 
ing in disfavor. 

Watch your baby to see that he gains in 
weight normally and regularly, not that 
he weighs superlatively. Seven or eight 
pounds is an average healthy weight at 
his entrance into this world. But the new- 
comer may range from five to twelve and 
still be normal. He is going to lose up to 
the fifth day, approximately, and then be- 
gin to gain, reaching his original weight 
when about two weeks old. From that 
time on, the breast-fed baby should gain 







Filling a bottle,, which will be stoppered 
and placed in the ice-box. The milk 
has been strained into the pitcher. 




=«r: 



1 




Photographs taken under the auspices of the New York Diet Kitchen Association. 

The complete outfit for preparing artificial food for the 
baby, and for the caring for the bottles, nipples, etc. 



MOTHERCRAFT 125 

about six or eight ounces a week for the 
first six months, then two or three ounces 
a week for the next six months. Thus, at 
the end of the first year we find him weigh- 
ing some dozen pounds more than at the 
beginning. If he has been artificially fed, 
he may gain even less and still be healthy. 
If you find a gain above eight ounces a 
week, the danger-signal is out. These 
figures are given by a conservative pedia- 
trician; a more generally accepted rule is 
that the baby trebles his weight in the first 
year, which puts him rather over than 
under twenty pounds. But as nearly dead 
a baby as I ever saw brought back to life 
was rescued from overfeeding , having been 
born a fourteen-pounder, and stuffed there- 
after like a Thanksgiving turkey. 

It's worth remembering that in this 
inestimably precious little human product 
in our arms, it's quality, not quantity, that 
counts. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE GROWING BODY OF YOUR 
CHILD 

A YOUNG man in a certain New 
Jersey village is selling ribbons, 
chest-plasters, and ginger-snaps in 
the post-office. He was to have been an 
architect in a large city — his talent was un- 
usual — but he can never use his eyes for 
draughting. The reason is that somebody 
let him overuse them during a period in his 
boyhood when they were weakened by seri- 
ous illness. 

A clever, ambitious girl in a New Eng- 
land college had to break off her junior year 
and go home, a nervous wreck. She had not 
overstudied; college students rarely do. 
The average curriculum is not too much for 
the healthy student. But she had been on 

126 



MOTHEECRAFT 127 

the verge of nervous wreckage ever since 
babyhood, because her mother had not 
known how to care for a sensitive young 
nervous system in the formative period. 
As a baby she had been constantly dandled, 
trotted, rocked, clucked at, chirruped at, 
scolded, shaken, flopped, tucked, untucked, 
and fussed over; the bill came in twenty- 
one years later. 

A brilliantly promising young surgeon 
gave up his practice last year and went 
to Colorado to raise alfalfa. The world 
needs alfalfa, to be sure, but there are 
several thousand who can raise it to one 
who can remove the human appendix with 
his incredible skill. But he has to live in 
the dry country. Nobody thought to feed 
him on fresh air and an especially nourish- 
ing diet, to encourage his interest in ath- 
letics — in general, to make a business of 
fortifying him against the threatened at- 
tack of tuberculosis. 

We will refrain from multiplying this 



128 MOTHERCRAFT 

dismal list of the handicapped. To many 
of us it is far, far sadder than a list of the 
dead. But when you stop to think of it, 
do you wonder that when Dr. Thomas 
Denison Wood, of Columbia University, 
lectures to his classes on the hygiene of 
childhood, he tells them that it is the least 
understood hygiene in the world? 

It is not, he feels, so much that humanity 
is ignorant of the details of hygiene, al- 
though there is vast room for improvement 
on that score; but that it fails to grasp the 
significance of those details. Such cases as 
the above can only be explained by lack of 
understanding. We don't realize that dur- 
ing the first year especially, and to a great 
extent during all the years of growth, life 
habits of health or non-health are formed. 
Indeed, Dr. Wood claims that moral train- 
ing, to be effective, should have as a basis 
a healthy body. That's too big a matter 
for us at present, but let's not forget the 
statement. 



MOTHEECRAFT 129 

Now for that body on which we are to 
build our moral training. Consider the 
number of children annually born in the 
United States. Every one of these children 
has, or had, in the beginning, at any rate, 
a mother. That makes a multitude of 
persons annually undertaking the most 
responsible position that there is. How 
many of them are fitted for the undertak- 
ing? How many of them would dare de- 
clare that they fully understand the grow- 
ing body of their child who is to be? 

Dr. Wood preaches a social parenthood — 
that all grown-ups ought to feel the re- 
sponsibility of all children. But there's no 
getting away from the fact that the person 
most intimately responsible of all is the 
one who let the boy architect ruin his 
eyes, who wrought nervous destruction for 
her daughter, who opened the gates to tu- 
berculosis — the mother. 

It's not a pleasant thought. But there's 
always compensation for facing an ugly 



130 MOTHEKCRAFT 

truth courageously. When the genera- 
tions to come march forward like a pro- 
cession of young Victories — heads up, chests 
broad and brave, limbs straight and supple, 
poised minds housed in poised bodies — the 
credit will be most of all due to the mothers 
who understood their business — the profes- 
sional mothers of tomorrow. 

One day I asked Dr. Ira S. Wile, that fa- 
mous pediatrician who has saved so many 
babies through his big civic work in New 
York City, that he would blush if he had to 
tell you their number — asked him to formu- 
late a very brief creed stating the funda- 
mentals of a child's right living. Here are 
the articles of the creed. 

Plenty of air, which includes sunshine, 
as sunshine always gets in with the air if 
it is anywhere around. 

Plenty of rest. 

Plenty of water. (This means both 
within and without.) 

Moderate and nourishing food. 



MOTHERCRAFT 131 

Moderate clothing — ask yourself if the 
child is coolly enough dressed rather than 
warmly enough. 

Plenty of play. 

Plenty of common-sense. 

Which last, being interpreted, means the 
wisdom and the initiative to adapt all laws 
to your individual conditions. 

Let's look over the articles of the creed, 
one at a time. Plenty of air is the child's 
right from the day it arrives. Not only 
should the nursery air be kept clean by 
constant ventilation, at first by means of 
the window board if it be winter ; but every 
little while the room should be flooded 
with outdoor air. Move the baby into 
another room while you open every window 
wide. Do this as soon as he is dressed in 
the morning, to start the day well; just 
before you put him to bed, to start the night 
well ; and in between for good measure. 

He must have fresh-air baths indoors by 
way of introduction to the open. Before 



132 MOTHERCRAFT 

he is a month old — we are talking about 
the winter baby now — he is to be dressed 
in cap and cloak, placed in the carriage; 
in short, given to understand that he is to 
make his first outing — and then entertained 
with the closest imitation of that outing 
consistent with the weather. Roll the car- 
riage to a position near the windows, fling 
every one of them open wide, both top and 
bottom, close the doors, and give him a 
good quarter-hour outing indoors, in- 
creasing its length daily. When six weeks 
old he can go out — say for a half-hour at 
first, longer each succeeding day. Suppose 
he is a summer baby; take him out at even 
a week, say the modern-among-moderns, 
in the very best weather; at any rate, be- 
fore the first month has elapsed. 

In all this common-sense must judge for 
itself. It recognizes the fact that a strong 
wind is irritating to the respiratory organs 
of a baby; that a thermometer below freez- 
ing is a warning to the very young baby; 



MOTHERCRAFT 133 

that the latter part of the forenoon, say 
about eleven o'clock, and the middle of 
the afternoon are his best times for a ride 
in cold weather, although all the long 
summer day, if fair, is his to revel in. He 
should fare forth in his carriage from the 
beginning, never in arms. He needs the 
carriage hood to shield his supersensitive 
eyes, and his position on the cushion is 
better than when carried. 

Up-to-date physicians approve of out- 
door sleeping, although the safe-and-sane 
type are uttering a warning against over- 
zeal in this matter. The temperature, as 
well as the robustness of the child, must 
guide you. A bitter little tragedy of last 
winter proved that the baby heart is not 
stout enough to pump in defiance of any 
temperature. 

But it's a safe rule for the growing child 
that, other things being equal, the more 
hours of the twenty-four he spends in 
the open, the better. Eating, sleeping, 



134 MOTHERCRAFT 

working, playing, loafing — he can do every 
one of these, at least a part of the year, 
outdoors. Two of the greatest ills that 
flesh is heir to — tuberculosis and nervous 
disorder — are treated nowadays with fresh 
air. Forestall the physician. 

Now for rest. 

Your new baby sleeps nine-tenths of the 
time. It ought to. Occasionally it takes a 
brief vacation from sleeping in order to 
cry. This, too, is as it should be. At least 
a half-hour a day ought to be spent in what 
appears to be lamenting its fate, but is, in 
reality, mere lung-exercise and a sort of 
self-assertion ; a way of stating, " I'm alive, 
and I wish it thoroughly understood." But 
for all its assertions it is too helpless to 
turn itself in bed, and it must be turned, 
for its present comfort and for the sake of 
symmetrical development. Except for this, 
the more it is left alone the better; after 
one month, it need be fed but once during 
the night. 



MOTHERCRAFT 135 

The young baby is extremely excitable, 
and too much stress cannot be laid on the 
quiet which is its right. One of the com- 
monest of baby-abuses is putting it to bed 
in a stimulated condition — playing with it, 
romping and laughing, at bedtime. In- 
stead of this, it ought, for at least a half- 
hour, to be gently drawn into a state of re- 
laxation. It can be taken to the silent 
nursery, undressed slowly, soothed by quiet 
talking and peaceful lullabies, led toward 
the total loosening of nervous tension which 
the night should bring. Care must be 
taken, however, that it does not grow de- 
pendent upon singing, rocking, or any other 
form of soothing. 

The child needs sleep, much sleep, more- 
over, restful sleep. All sleep is not restful. 
If the healthy child does not sleep well, 
find out the reason. Cold feet should be 
rubbed. The bedclothing may be too heavy, 
or too tightly tucked in. The room may 
be stale of air. With a baby, there may 



136 MOTHERCRAFT 

have been carelessness in dressing, or too 
rapid feeding which has caused slight colic. 
Its last meal may have been insufficient. 
An empty stomach may disturb the sleep 
of the older child, too ; some light food, such 
as crackers and milk, may be needed at 
bedtime to draw the blood away from the 
head. Adenoids or enlarged tonsils may be 
interfering with the breathing, making the 
child restless. There is a reason, at any 
rate, and it is your business to keep on 
hunting until you find it out. Every child, 
at every age, should have long sweet hours 
of undisturbed sleep at night, and a nap 
every day for the first half-dozen years of 
its life, if not longer, making a total of ten 
or twelve hours if possible. 

Plenty of water — here is where the 
splashing begins. The normal baby ought 
to take to water like a duck. And it will, 
if the bath is properly given. 

It is about ten days old when the first 
tubbing takes place. The room is warm, 



MOTHERCRAFT 137 

and the temperature of the water is 100° 
Fahrenheit. Later, you will have a chance 
to don your own bath-apron ; just now, the 
best you can do is to observe, while the 
nurse holds your offspring, bathing its head 
and face and drying them first ; then gently 
soaping over the little body and immersing 
it quickly. And you make a note of the 
fact that babies are patted dry, not rubbed. 

The temperature of the water does not go 
below 95° for the young baby. Decrease 
gradually, until you bring it to 85° by the 
end of the first year. These temperatures 
are for the first bath ; the second is the cool 
rinsing which follows, to close the pores 
against cold, and to stimulate. The second 
should never be cold for a baby, merely re- 
freshingly cool. 

For the warm and cool bath there should 
be two basins, two washcloths, and castile 
soap. The baby is soaped, bathed in the 
warm water, then quickly but gently 
rubbed over with a cloth dipped in the cool 



138 MOTHEKORAFT 

water. The baby is held with the left arm, 
leaving the right free for the operation. 

In all the hygiene of bathing it is well to 
remember the meaning of the two baths. 
The warm is for cleansing and relaxing, the 
cool for stimulating. A restless child may 
be cured of bad sleeping by a warm bath 
at bedtime. Make the water tepid, sponge 
the baby off, using only a little soap, dry 
the body softly, then rub the limbs and back 
with a soothing movement. The cool bath 
is for the morning, and is given without 
soap, and sometimes with a little alcohol 
added, for a tonic. One must always re- 
member the very sensitive skin of the young 
child, and avoid all rubbing with a towel. 

The finishing touches of the bath are the 
powder, either rice or unperfumed talcum, 
well dusted into all the fat creases but not 
lavished all over the body, lest the pores be 
clogged ; and a cleansing of the eyes with a 
solution of boracic acid — one teaspoonful to 
a pint of water, used tepid. You remember 







bC 

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pQ 


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MOTHERCRAFT 139 

that this is to be squeezed into each eye 
from a bit of absorbent cotton, the baby 
held so that the water will run to the outer 
corner of the eye. 

Growing children should have a warm 
bath at night, and cold in the morning, pro- 
vided it agrees with them. The cold tub- 
bing or shower is for those who react, glow- 
ing after it. If they don't do this, try the 
cold sponge. Even this is too severe for 
some; not for many, however. The warm 
bath is too relaxing for most to indulge in 
every night. Some, too, are made restless 
by it, with a feeling of feverishness. For 
these, two warm baths, even one, may be 
the maximum per week. 

Plenty of water within, is a subject in- 
cluded with diet, and diet is so vast a sub- 
ject that it is to be omitted here. Next in 
the creed comes clothing. 

The first thing to remember is, that it 
should nearly always be lighter than it is; 
the second, that it should be properly dis- 



140 MOTHERCRAFT 

tributed. Heavy underwear and bare legs 
in cold weather mean a very poor distri- 
bution of clothing over the little body of 
the child who is old enough to run about. 
Dress the child in underwear at least one 
grade lighter than the heaviest, even in mid- 
winter, but cover that child all over its 
body when it is outdoors. Our modern 
houses are warm, and the child's circula- 
tion is brisk, and it should not be bundled 
indoors; the change can more easily be 
made by means of the outer garments, put- 
ting on a warm coat and leggins. Always 
remember that knitted garments and loose- 
woven garments are both warmer and 
lighter than close-woven, thick ones. 

An important warning in regard to the 
clothing of growing children is uttered by 
physicians concerning the tight, dragging 
garters now in vogue. They tug up the 
stockings at one end, tug down the shoul- 
ders at the other, by means of the tight 
shoulder straps which are attached to the 



MOTHERCRAFT 141 

waists supporting the garters. The little 
plastic body is pulled out of its free, erect 
carriage, and a tendency to round shoul- 
ders or one-sidedness may be greatly in- 
creased. There are good shoulder straps 
which hold the garters without the inter- 
vention of the waist, straps so made as to 
draw the shoulders back into a correct pos- 
ture. These are best of all, for the danger 
of the round garter to circulation is well 
known. 

Plenty of play, says the creed. It is 
rather a pathetic thought that this gener- 
ation has to make a science of play for its 
grown-ups. Thank fortune, the normal 
child still knows how to play if it is given 
the chance. See that it has this from the 
beginning, and the physical exercise of the 
growing child will pretty well take care of 
itself. 

The new baby cries — yes, fond and apolo- 
getic mother, it screams — but that's part 
of its gymnastics. The lungs are expand- 



142 MOTHEECRAFT 

ing. It wiggles and kicks and flaps its 
arms as if about to crow, and investigates, 
with contortions, its fingers and toes. Let 
it. That's all it needs — loose clothing and 
covers, bare feet, opportunity. Spread a 
quilt on the nursery floor, strip the baby 
down to its diaper, and let it entertain it- 
self like a circus acrobat — this by the time 
it is a few months old. Before that, your 
own wide bed may be used instead of the 
floor. Take it out of its carriage when it 
is outdoors, and let it kick with enthusiasm 
over the delightful outer world it is get- 
ting acquainted with. A pen, or inclosed 
playroom, is excellent; a two-foot wall in- 
closes a mattress, and the baby can enter- 
tain itself therein. Such a pen may be pur- 
chased on wheels. 

Play, exercise, should be as spontaneous 
as possible. Don't make a slave of your- 
self to amuse the baby. It is better off 
without you. It is better off without your 
urging when it starts to walk. This, as 



MOTHERCEAFT 143 

well as the play, should be spontaneous. 
The baby knows pretty well when it is 
ready to undertake the great change from 
elemental four-footedness to the upright- 
ness of civilization. Never offer it a me- 
chanical aid. The common " walker " is 
pernicious ; don't use it. If the baby really 
shows a desire to walk, but is timid, hold 
your hand a foot from it and encourage it 
to walk to you. Always bear in mind the 
fact that the young bones are soft, in the 
formative process, and misshapen legs may 
result from too early walking and stand- 
ing. 

Apropos of soft bones — do you know that 
lateral curves of the spine are found in 
perhaps as many as thirty out of every one 
hundred school children? And by that 
thirty, specialists mean not those with the 
slightest deviation from the median line, 
either, but curvatures serious enough to 
need treatment. It is safe to say that half 
the people in the world having what phy- 



144 MOTHEKCRAFT 

sicians know as curvature would be shocked 
to learn it. They warn their dressmakers 
to allow for a high hip or a sloping shoul- 
der. For women are the majority of the 
victims. They do not know that the un- 
even hip or shoulder is likely enough the 
result of a lateral curvature of the 
spine. 

Scoliosis is the technical name for this 
one-sidedness. It develops during the years 
of soft bones. The child perhaps forms a 
habit of sleeping always on the same side. 
She forms a habit of standing with one hip 
raised, often resting an armful of school- 
books on the left hip and letting it sink. 
She may wear the incorrect garters men- 
tioned above. She may curl up one-sidedly 
when she sits for long periods. Habit, 
habit, habit — always, day after day, the 
soft bones are forced into a crooked posi- 
tion, and some day she steps forth, a grown 
woman, the bones hardened and fixed for a 
lifetime, with this ugly curve established. 



MOTHERCRAFT 145 

It is like the molding of cold metal that has 
been poured when molten. 

Nobody but a watchful mother has much 
chance of averting this deformity. She 
must break up every one of these habits of 
bad posture, insisting that the child shall 
sit, stand, walk, straight. If the first sign 
of a curve has developed, let the child 
learn to sleep lying on the concave side of 
the trunk. The mattress should be a firm 
one. If the school does not give sufficient 
gymnastic exercise, see that she (or he — 
for boys may develop the trouble) joins 
a gymnasium. There are special corrective 
exercises for such deformities. Talk this 
matter over with a first-class physical 
educator. 

Not only is a curve like this an annoying 
disfigurement to endure, but very serious 
results may follow, from the pressure on 
certain organs. 

Flat foot, the falling of the arch, has been 
called by Dr. Judson, the orthopedic sur- 



146 MOTHERCRAFT 

geon, " an ailment for which there is really 
no good excuse." Teach your child a cor- 
rect posture; give him shoes that are large 
enough, heels that are low enough, leave 
his ankles free enough — no tight lacing — 
choose soles that are flexible enough, and 
he's not likely to be troubled. 

When mothers have a clearer under- 
standing of the fundamentals of right liv- 
ing, such as diet, ventilation, baths and the 
like, we shall have a generation which is 
resistant in general to the inroads of dis- 
ease — less susceptible to contagious dis- 
eases, to degenerative diseases such as heart 
and kidney trouble, to epidemics, to nerv- 
ous breakdown, to tuberculosis. In addi- 
tion to this, we must have an understand- 
ing of special forms of hygiene — of the eye, 
the ear, the throat, and so on — if we would 
radically reduce the list of those handi- 
capped by deafness, myopia, and all kin- 
dred afflictions. 

A member of the Harvard Medical fac- 



MOTHERCRAFT 147 

ulty made the statement that nothing 
smaller than your elbow should ever be in- 
serted in a baby's ear. That is an excellent 
first lesson in the care of the ear. The hu- 
man ear bears a deal of wholesome neglect 
— that is, inside. Nature provides wax for 
protective purposes of her own. But the 
keenest watchfulness should be ready to 
note any sign of deafness. This same 
specialist says that the mother is often the 
last person to recognize this. Over and 
over she insists that her child is inatten- 
tive. But no perfectly normal child is in- 
attentive, he states. The child is keenly 
alert, provided all his faculties are un- 
hindered. Educators have come to recog- 
nize this fact of late years, and it has caused 
a deal of upsetting in the schools. " Stu- 
pid " and " inattentive " children have been 
found to be suffering from adenoids or 
myopia, so that they heard only part of 
the teacher's instructions, or never saw 
clearly what was on the blackboard. 



148 MOTHERCRAFT 

The great proportion of adult deafness is 
caused by adenoids. These cases are usually 
incurable. If the growth had been re- 
moved when the deaf person was from four 
to eight years old, at any rate before twelve, 
he might be enjoying lectures, concerts, ser- 
mons, and musical comedies today. 

If the child breathes persistently through 
his mouth, if he has repeated earaches or 
abscesses in the throat, heed the warnings. 
Adenoids are probably present and should 
be removed. Deafness is a probable result, 
and a general devitalizing, due to clogging 
and poisoning of the system. You wouldn't 
keep your child shut in a closet all the time ; 
you would say the air was bad for him. 
He is in much the same situation with his 
breathing passages partially stopped. 

The tonsils are the primary source of in- 
fection. If there is a constant tendency to 
tonsilitis, a physician should make an ex- 
amination. Children should be taught to 
gargle when very young, and a daily gargle 



MOTHEECRAFT 149 

of a listerine solution, one part to five 
of water, may correct a tendency to 
" scratchy " throat. A persistent running 
at the nose may be merely the result of 
over- or under-dressing, causing a slight 
chronic cold; it may even result from a nu- 
tritional disorder. Mouth breathing may 
possibly be merely a habit, easily corrected. 
But for the most part it is well to see a 
specialist if there are symptoms of ear, 
nose, or throat trouble, for they should be 
nipped in the bud. 

The care of a child's eyes begins as soon 
as the child enters the carefully prepared 
nursery, with its softened light. When he 
goes forth to ride in state, it should be 
beneath a parasol lined with blue or green. 
Pew realize to the full the meaning of per- 
fect cleanliness as regards the eyes ; the bo- 
racic acid solution should be used every 
day, even twice a day is not too much, until 
the child reaches four or five years. Dr. 
Edward S. Peck says that every mother 



150 MOTHERCRAFT 

ought to know that this rigid cleanliness, 
the use of a teaspoonful of boracic acid to 
a pint of sterile water, will prevent in large 
measure the formation of sties and crusts 
and bad conditions of the eyelashes. It is 
possible that this simple preventive meas- 
ure will avert more serious trouble and the 
consequent use of glasses later on. 

Don't be afraid of the oculist. Thirty- 
five per cent, of ingrowing eyes in infancy 
can be corrected by the early use of glasses ; 
this is better than being " squint-eyed," 
isn't it? Any deviation from the normal 
should be looked after, and promptly. 
About fourteen inches from the eyes is the 
normal distance for holding a book or any 
close work ; if the child holds it much nearer 
or farther, have his eyes examined. But 
a vast proportion of eye trouble is due to 
strain which might have been avoided by 
a watchful mother. Try preventive meas- 
ures, and you may be able to defer the use 
of glasses until age calls for them. 



MOTHERCRAFT 151 

Train your boy and girl in habits of care 
for this precious gift of sight. Teach them 
the simple code of honor toward the eyes. 
They should not read by fading light, while 
lying down, or with the light shining direct- 
ly into the eyes. They should sit near a 
window or lamp, with the light falling over 
the shoulder. The same rules hold, of 
course, in writing, sewing — any close work. 
If the right hand is being used, be sure that 
the light falls over the left shoulder, lest 
a shadow fall on the work. 

Aid and abet the child's own care of his 
eyes by furnishing him with a proper light 
for his studying. It should be steady, and 
so placed as to fall on the book. Teach him 
to close his eyes, or to look about the room 
for a few seconds as often as every quarter- 
hour. His outdoor play life will be a great 
help to his eyes, for it changes his focus 
from near to far. 

Above all, never let your child use his 
eyes when he is weakened by illness. The 



152 MOTHEKCKAFT 

results may be serious enough in any case, 
with the general strength lowered; but 
after the sicknesses that especially affect 
the eyes — for instance, measles — such care- 
lessness is criminal. 

Help your child to possess sound, regu- 
lar teeth. Not only will they be an orna- 
ment, but they will protect him, in many 
cases, against digestive ailments. Don't 
make a bogey of his first teething process; 
it is far less serious than superstition 
claims. The child's nervousness at that 
time may be greatly lessened by an abun- 
dance of fresh air and particular attention 
to general quiet. Help along the new tooth 
by a gentle rubbing of your finger upon 
the gum; give him a ring of hard rubber 
or ivory, or the hard cracker ring; his 
troubles are well on the way to being over. 

But while the first teething process is 
often taken too seriously, the later care of 
the teeth is seldom taken seriously enough. 
Dr. Walter Clayton, who has examined and 



MOTHERCRAFT 153 

treated the teeth of many school children, 
believes that the fundamental failure made 
in caring for the teeth is neglect of the 
primary ones. He considers it important 
that a child be taken to a dentist by the 
time it is three years old, even six months 
sooner, whether or not you know of any 
trouble. The dentist may detect something 
that you missed. 

It's a common thing for mothers to say, 
" Oh, those baby teeth will fall out soon 
anyway — what's the use? " 

Here are three answers to that: 

The primary teeth, if decaying, may in- 
fect the second, or permanent teeth, ruin- 
ing them for life. 

They may, by falling out before their 
time, deform the soft, easily molded jaw. 

They may, by being broken and decayed, 
cause imperfect mastication, with serious 
stomach trouble resulting. 

From the first, the teeth should be kept 
scrupulously clean. Wash gently around 



154 MOTHERCRAFT 

the first one ; brush them later, with a tiny 
toothbrush, and before your offspring is old 
enough for the kindergarten he should 
learn to handle his own moderately stiff 
brush, working up and down as well as 
across. Tooth powder should be used in 
the morning, and plain water, or a few 
drops of tooth wash in water, at night. 
Let your dentist tell you what kinds to 
buy. Absolute purity is essential. 

While the child is still young enough to 
drink a great deal of milk, there is a tend- 
ency to what is known as " green tartar." 
This is a lactic acid formation, and will in- 
crease at a rapid rate without proper 
cleansing. Every six months a dentist 
should look over the teeth. 

Protruding or crooked teeth can be fairly 
easily straightened in the beginning, but 
after the soft jaw hardens, efforts are long 
and painful, often they fail altogether. 

Above all, guard the six-year molars. 
They are the most valuable asset in the 



MOTHERCRAFT 155 

way of teeth that humanity has, being the 
four real workers of the entire corps. They 
are willing to do the most of the grinding 
through life if they are cared for. 

Even a toothbrush is not too small and 
too humble a thing to play its modest part 
in building the future of the human race, 
you see. 



CHAPTER VII 
A FOOTING FOR LIFE 

IT was weeks ago that I saw it, but I 
can't as yet forget a certain scarlet toy 
balloon. 

It was tethered to the foot of a little 
white bed in the most luxurious private 
room of one of a great city's great hospitals. 
It had just been brought in by a distin- 
guished elderly man, along with a lavish 
pile of other toys, and it had impertinently 
bumped the statesmanlike nose while the 
statesmanlike person tied it to his little 
grandson's bed. 

" Look what grand-dad brought me ! " the 
youngster chirruped from his pillow. 
" This is the fire engine — and say, look at 
the hook and ladder ! But that's the crack- 
erjack of the bunch ! " and he turned to the 

156 



MOTHERCRAFT 157 

red balloon, where it swayed and rocked 
and rollicked on its leash. 

" It's a peach ! " he murmured ecstatic- 
ally, and for moments his eyes rested on 
it ; then 

Oh, no, there was nothing wistful or self- 
pitying or one whit suggestive of senti- 
mental Sunday School tales; indeed not! 
He was a little thoroughbred. He just sort 
of bit back something, the way a man might 
do, then he turned to the nurse with a 
briskly efficient air and gave instruc- 
tions : 

" Say, I guess you'd better pass it along 
to some kid that can run with it outdoors." 

Later on I learned the why. A baby foot 
had seemed weak, and had turned more and 
more, and the mother, noticing, had thought 
it a habit which " he would outgrow." The 
soft little foot had begun to take on a per- 
manent misshapen form, and one day that 
mother waked up to the fact that she had 
allowed an orthopedic surgical case to de- 



158 MOTHERCRAFT 

velop while she was looking on. And here 
lay this little chap, surrounded by all the 
irony of hospital luxury, a suffering invalid 
during days when Mikey across the street 
was luxuriating in early spring mud pies 
— for the simple reason that nobody had at- 
tended in time to giving him a proper foot- 
ing for life. 

Of course this is an extreme case. But 
minor foot ailments are so common — I 
might almost say universal — that they inter- 
fere with human pleasures and accomplish- 
ments all the way from the hop-scotch of a 
little boy to the march of an army. That 
is why Dr. Josephine Hemenway Kenyon, in 
her course on a The Physical Care of In- 
fants and Small Children " at Teachers 
College, is preaching to her class that you 
can't begin too soon to care for the feet of 
a child. 

" Large ailments grow from small begin- 
nings," I heard her tell her class. " In hos- 
pital practice, I have known children of no 



MOTHERCRAFT 159 

more than four or five years to cry all night 
from the pain of flat-foot." 

Surely that is enough of a text for a very 
long sermon! 

There are two fundamentals in foot-care, 
and they are — 

Correct posture. 

Correct dressing. 

And since both of these virtues can be 
achieved (given a normal foot) at home, I 
propose an organization to be called, Asso- 
ciation of the Mothers of Today for the 
Purpose of Putting the Chiropodists of To- 
morrow Out of Business. 

When you and I were little, we were 
nagged and bribed and punished into " turn- 
ing our toes out." Thus did so-called civili- 
zation plant the seed of innumerable cases 
of flat-foot. This pose was called graceful, 
and the "pigeon-toed" child was held up 
as a terrible warning. Today we know that 
extreme toeing-out is a distortion tending 
toward deformity, and that the child who 



160 MOTHERCRAFT 

toes in, while not to be imitated, is choos- 
ing far the lesser error of the two. " The 
straight foot posture " is the new ideal of 
orthopedists; it is preached by them con- 
stantly, and it is already being taught in 
many schools and gymnasiums, Dr. Henry 
Ling Taylor, professor of orthopedic sur- 
gery at the New York Post-Graduate Med- 
ical School, being one of the strongest in- 
fluences in bringing this about. 

Experiment. Place your own feet in an 
exaggerated outward posture, to see the re- 
sult more plainly. You notice that the 
weight, instead of being evenly distributed, 
tends to fall on the inside of the sole; in 
fact, the foot is inclined to roll over some- 
what on the inside. Now look at the inside 
— the ankle, and adjacent portions. They 
protrude, distorting the entire shape of the 
feet. 

Next, place the feet so that they face for- 
ward. You feel the weight of your body 
resting evenly, the soles placed squarely to 



MOTHEKCRAFT 161 

receive that weight. You see the ankles 
straightening up, returning to their normal 
and beautiful line. Isn't just one look suf- 
ficient to prove that this is Nature's posi- 
tion for the human foot? 

The foot which rests unevenly upon the 
ground is disturbing perfect balance. The 
results are various. Undue pressure upon 
some one spot may follow, causing a corn 
or the ingrowth of a nail. Or there may 
result that sadly frequent trouble — and a 
serious one — flat-foot, which results in 
acute pain and often impairs the entire 
health by causing suffering and curtailing 
exercise. What a start in life for a pair of 
little feet which must walk and stand, and 
would like to run and dance, for as many as 
possible of threescore and ten years! 

Begin, then, by placing your child's foot 
correctly from the time he starts to walk. 
The first mistake you can make is to put 
him into a " walker." Besides its general 
fault of urging the child too soon, it commits 



162 



MOTHERCRAFT 



the specific sin of causing the baby, as he 
propels himself, to acquire a habit of push- 
ing constantly with one foot, turning that 
member over on the side while pushing, 
until the position becomes fixed. 

The first lessons in walking are nothing 
more than a little encouragement to the 
four-footed infant to rise erect to man's es- 
tate. It is so nearly impossible for him to 
balance at all, that it would be hardly 
courteous in us two-footed creatures to crit- 
icise the way he turns his toes. But from 
the moment when he begins really to walk 
and run about, you must be on the lookout 
to nip in the bud any tendency to a wrong 
position of the feet. If he is normal, the 
chances are that he will walk straight 
ahead as he should; but if he develops a 
tendency to place the foot unevenly, any 
amount of persistent correction, no matter 
how wearisome, is a small price to pay for 
his future comfort and health. 

Abnormalities of course call for a spe- 



MOTHEKCRAFT 163 

cialist's care — and at once. There is great 
danger in letting any malformation go until 
the little bones harden. " Pigeon-toes," 
for instance, may be caused by an abnormal- 
ity at the hip such as no amount of correc- 
tion at home can alter. Let the orthopedist 
take any such matter in hand promptly, be- 
fore you run the risk of permanent crip- 
pling. 

But much that is wrong can be corrected 
at home. Weak ankles may often be treated 
by the mother. 

First of all, is your child's general condi- 
tion vigorous? It is very frequently true 
that nothing but a general toning-up of the 
system is needed to give the floppy ankle 
firmness. If you are a Mothercraftsman, 
you will know how to build up constitu- 
tional vigor. 

By way of local treatment, give the little 
ankles a good brisk alcohol rub at bedtime, 
rubbing up the leg as well. 

Do not purchase every kind of brace and 



164 MOTHERCRAFT 

" corset shoe " which salesmen plausibly 
offer. 

Teach your child the simple exercises 
which play through all the sensitive foot- 
and leg-muscles, tingling, calling forth 
their powers. Dr. Kenyon does not approve 
of skating, either ice or roller, for weak 
ankles, in spite of the popular idea that it 
will strengthen them. She considers the 
effort to balance too much of a strain. But 
there are exercises recommended by special- 
ists, among them: 

Rise on toes! Over and over, increasing 
the number of times daily. 

Roll dumb-bells with the bare feet. 

Run! If the weather prevents outdoor 
running games, let the child " run on 
place," a familiar gymnastic exercise, in- 
doors. 

Dance! Any dancing is good, but gym- 
nastic dancing is especially adapted to the 
weak foot's needs. Why not study it a bit 
yourself, and dance with your child, if you 



MOTHERCRAFT 165 

cannot put him under a professional 
teacher? 

Jump rope! In this, as in all the rest, 
never let fatigue set in. 

Although the above are given especially 
for weak foot- and ankle-muscles, it is true 
that every growing child would be better 
off for taking them. The human foot is a 
much neglected member. Our ancestors 
who lived the simple life in the woods used 
their feet a good deal as they used their 
hands — they were prehensile. While we 
have improved upon those persons in man- 
ners and style of dress, we are inferior in 
foot development, and it is time we set 
about catching up with our forefathers in 
this respect. 

Dr. Kenyon says she is used to being 
laughed at when she preaches that every 
child should be taught to use its toes as 
much as possible like fingers, but she lets 
people laugh and preaches on. The point 
is, that the more agile and strong every 



166 MOTHERCRAFT 

muscle in the foot becomes, the less likeli- 
hood is there of foot ailments. She en- 
courages toe-games, droll little plays in 
which the youngsters try to see how far 
apart they can stretch the five pink toes like 
a fan ; how tightly they can curl them, like 
a rosebud; how far they can turn them 
back, like spreading petals. They go into 
gales of laughter over trying to pick up 
some small article — a piece of paper, or a 
small rubber ball, for instance — with the 
toes, not letting the officious fingers help 
even one tiny bit. 

If symptoms of flat-foot are developing, 
there are exercises especially adapted to 
checking this. Of course you will at once 
correct the foot posture and provide proper 
footwear, but the exercises should be given 
as well. 

This trouble, sometimes known as weak- 
foot (for the reason that the foot does not 
always flatten) or fallen-arch, heralds its 
approach by pain while standing or walk- 



MOTHERCRAFT 167 

ing and immediately after. As it increases, 
the pain lasts into the night. It is in dif- 
ferent parts of the foot, sometimes running 
up the leg even to the hip. There may be 
swelling and tenderness. The victim be- 
gins to avoid standing and exercise, some- 
times imagining that he has rheumatism. 

So frequently it is caused by toeing-out, 
that the corrective exercises are standing 
and walking " pigeon-toed," rising on the 
turned-in toes, and the like. 

Also for the sake of throwing weight 
upon the outer edge of the foot, and the re- 
lated leg muscles, let the child cross his feet 
before him while he sits erect on the for- 
ward part of the chair, the feet resting on 
the outside of the soles. He is to rise as 
far as he can, then sit, rise and sit a num- 
ber of times. 

Drs. Bradford and Lovett, orthopedists 
of Boston, recommend that the leg of a light 
chair be placed between the first two toes, 
then the weight be thrown on the ball. Now 



168 MOTHERCRAFT 

bend the knee and turn the leg outward 
while the entire sole and heel remain flat. 

Let the child, standing, cross his feet in 
just the reverse of the position you were 
once upon a time taught — that is, with the 
toes turned in, the weight coming on the 
foot's outer edge. Then bend, rise, bend, 
rise, several times, using the knee and keep- 
ing the feet in position. 

Let him place his feet side by side, touch- 
ing all along the inner edges. Keeping the 
soles flat on the floor, he is to bend the knees 
as far as he can, then spread them apart. 

Let him take hold of the rung of a chair 
with the toes, and pull and push the chair 
to and fro. Older patients are given 
weights in the chair, but this is too hard 
for the young child. Indeed, any of these 
exercises which prove a strain should be 
modified or omitted. 

While seated, let him turn the foot, toes 
inward, against the resistance of a heavy 
table leg or other fixed object. 



MOTHERCRAFT 169 

The volumes u Orthopedic Surgery," by 
the above-named specialists, and " The 
Posture of School Children," by Miss Jes- 
sie H. Bancroft, who is assistant director 
of physical training in the public schools 
of New York, give exercises which may be 
practiced at home. 

Supposing now that you have done every- 
thing in your power to place your child's 
feet correctly from the start, seeing to it 
that he treads the ground evenly and with 
the elastic step which comes of vigorous 
foot- and leg-muscles — don't undo all the 
good you have done by dressing those little 
feet incorrectly. In Chapter III we took 
up the matter of dressing the baby's feet. 
You recall that the dainty knitted bootees, 
while they give an agreeable summer- 
veranda occupation to ladies at the seashore, 
are usually of as much use to a baby's feet 
as they would be to a roly-poly kitten's 
paws. The baby is to go barefooted, unless 
his feet happen to be uncommonly cold, 



170 MOTHERCRAFT 

while they are covered with long clothes. 
His first shoe should be an Indian moccasin, 
or a correct kid shoe, the description of 
which was given. If you must have a 
bootee for state occasions, the soft kid one 
is a good type. 

Don't be careless in the matter of stock- 
ings. A tight stocking is capable of doing 
almost as much harm as a tight shoe. See 
to it that they never compress the toes 
through narrowness or a stub " them through 
shortness. The stocking, along with the 
bootee, should be omitted while long clothes 
are still worn; but with the short clothes 
and the first wee shoe come the little stock- 
ings — cotton or silk in summer, part-wool 
in winter. 

At the same time that you are avoiding 
tight stockings, you must also avoid over- 
loose ones, for they form folds which rub 
inside the shoe. And incidentally, never 
let a child of any age go bare-kneed in cold 
weather ! 




One of the habits which 
makes for lateral curvature 
— persistently sitting on one 
foot. 




Another habit which makes for lateral curvature — persistently 

lying on one side. 



MOTHERCRAFT 171 

The matter of dye in stockings is of im- 
portance. Purchase the good makes only 
in colored stockings, for the tan or black 
dye rubs off from cheap hosiery. You can 
easily see that if there were even the slight- 
est injury of the foot, serious results might 
follow from the dye working in. 

Cheap hosiery, moreover, is like other 
cheap goods — very expensive. It wears 
badly, and never pays in the long run. Fur- 
thermore, it usually lacks that elasticity, 
that quality of conforming to the foot r 
which is so essential to a comfortable fit. 

A word to the thrifty mother who dili- 
gently darns from an overloaded basket of 
hosiery — please don't! Throw away those 
very hole-y socks! Far be it from me to 
encourage spendthrift habits, but the num- 
ber of corns and calluses and foot-aches 
which arise from socks made lumpy with 
countless darns won't rise up and call you 
blessed. As long as the darns are few and 
light, be thrifty — but no longer. 



172 MOTHERCRAFT 

We have come to the shoe, that basis of 
human comfort, so tremendously important 
from the first runabout days through life. 
If you will bear in mind the simple creed 
of " Freedom " for the foot, you can't go 
far amiss. Few realize what a wonderfully 
delicate mechanism the foot is ; in the grip 
of a hard, tight shoe, it is crushed as the 
works of a watch would be crushed in the 
clutch of a giant hand. The more the child- 
foot is allowed to expand to its normal 
shape, the better. 

The shoe has two purposes: one, to pro- 
tect the wearer from cuts and bruises by 
means of its sole; the other, to protect 
against the cold. Since the latter is nil in 
summer, the sandal serves every purpose, 
leaving the upper part of the foot practi- 
cally free. 

When sandals are not worn, choose a 
flexible upper which laces. Lacing can be 
adapted to the shape and size of the foot 
better than buttoning ; but always heed the 



MOTHERCRAFT 173 

warning, lace loose ! Dr. Adoniram Judson, 
a veteran orthopedist of New York, has for 
years preached against tight lacing as one 
of the prominent causes of flat-foot. 

The elk sole is both strong and flexible, 
and highly recommended by physicians. 

Avoid patent leather. It is heating as 
well as inflexible. I have known a fully- 
loose patent leather shoe to cause callous 
spots simply because it was hard as wood. 
No foot, large or small, can maintain its 
perfect flexibility in patent leather. 

Fond mothers are far too prone to clap 
on rubbers at every opportunity. As a 
protection against wet they must be worn, 
but never for mere warmth. They produce 
perspiration and clamminess. The arctic 
overshoe, with fleeced lining, is better. 

Hygiene and Fashion wage eternal war- 
fare over Heels. While extremists declare 
that the Heel must go, it is the consensus 
of opinion among conservative, rational 
physicians and orthopedists that a sensibly 



174 MOTHERCRAFT 

placed low heel, broad, and not under the 
middle of the foot, is harmless. 

After the flat infant shoe comes the 
child's runabout with a spring-heel, which 
is practically nothing but an increased 
thickness of the sole. This is replaced in 
time by the broad, three-quarters-inch 
heel which is high enough for all the years 
of life. 

The high heel which has a small surface is, 
first of all, a menace to safety, for it invites 
a fall. If the fall does not ensue, a wobbly 
footing is pretty sure to come, an uneven 
step, with a tendency to " run down " the 
heel at one edge. Furthermore, the high 
heel produces a curious effect in the foot 
itself. Let me tell you about the Achilles 
tendon. 

It is the strong tendon running from the 
calf of the leg down to the heel, and is of 
major importance, having much to do with 
the entire strength and activity of the foot. 
It was named for that hero who suffered 



MOTHERCRAFT 175 

from a vulnerable heel — you remember 
bow his mother, when dipping him in the 
Styx, picked him up by the heel and so left 
that small portion undipped. Look up the 
precious old story if you have forgotten it. 
Now this tendon is thrown up into a false 
position by the high heel until in time it ac- 
tually shortens. You say that a low heel 
hurts ; of course it does, after this shortening 
has become fixed. You have impaired an im- 
portant part of the foot's mechanism — for 
the time. Go to work to bring it back into 
vigor. In time, the low heel will cease to 
hurt. 

A word in behalf of the school-girl. As 
you care for her future, for the future of 
the race she is to bear, protect her from 
the high, misplaced French heel. It causes 
an abnormal tilt of the whole body, bad 
enough at any age, but seriously harmful 
in her formative years. 

In the near future there will be a won- 
derful new story to tell about orthopedic 



176 MOTHERCRAFT 

shoes. The American Posture League, a 
great national organization whose leaders 
include some of the biggest orthopedists and 
hygienists and physical educators in the 
country, is hot on the trail of foot-facts 
which we have hardly thought of. Dr. 
Percy W. Roberts has specialized on this 
work, taking tracings of a thousand feet, 
and he finds that there are no less than 
three types — those evenly balanced, those 
" inswung," or wider from the median line 
to the inside, and those " outswung," or 
wider from this line to the outside. Now 
the result of all his statistics will be to 
bring about three shapes of shoes on the 
market, conforming to the three types of 
foot, instead of one. Heretofore we have 
believed that one type fitted every normal 
foot. 

But until manufacturers have followed 
the League's recommendations, we must be 
content with the best orthopedic model now 
made. There are several shoes indorsed by 



MOTHERCKAFT 177 

specialists. One which is favored by many 
of them combines the hygienic features. It 
has a sole as broad as the foot. This means 
that there will be no bulging or overhang- 
ing of the upper. Its boxing is high, so 
that there can be no pressure on the top of 
the toes — this often causes ingrowing nails. 
Its width is so great that no pressure can be 
present across the toes — thus are corns and 
overlapping averted. The inside edge of the 
sole is a straight line — the common slanting 
to a point at the toe causes enlargement of 
the great-toe joint, and a bunion. This 
straight line also aids in breaking up the 
out-toeing habit by holding the foot in a po- 
sition of facing straight ahead. The shape 
of the toe is broadly rounding, the outline 
of the foot, The heel is low, and broad as 
the sole, and has a strip of rubber on its 
outer edge which aids the outer edge of the 
foot to take hold of the ground, so to speak, 
and corrects the prevailing tendency to take 
hold with the inner edge. But it tends to 



178 MOTHERCRAFT 

conform to the inswung foot; and we know 
now that this is not the only normal shape. 

An exploded theory of yesterday was that 
the square toe was "sensible." No foot 
is square, therefore it doesn't fit. The arch 
supporter fitted at random should be con- 
demned finally. If an arch is worn it should 
be fitted by an orthopedist just as much as 
spectacles by an oculist. 

The rapidity of the foot's growth between 
the ages of two and four is rarely realized 
by a mother, and she must watch lest it out- 
run the growth of the shoes and stockings. 
However, a loose shoe irritates the foot; so 
buy for the present, not the future. Take 
charts of the child-foot; either by cutting 
out the pencil-drawn outline from paper, or 
by lamp-blackening a piece of paper and 
getting the impression thereon. By such 
tracings you can compare the shoe and make 
sure of a fit. Shellac will preserve the black 
impression for later years. 

When you take off the youngster's shoes 



MOTHERCRAFT 179 

at the end of the day, observe the feet 
closely. If there is any cramping, it will 
show then. For as much as five minutes the 
crowded position obtains. 

Some of the little foot ailments which 
many a mother passes by are the sort that 
grow like weeds. For one thing, neglect of 
bathing may cause soreness between the 
toes, soft corns, and general discomfort. 

Dr. Kenyon says that in her years of 
practice at the Babies' Hospital of New 
York, it was pitiful to see how many of the 
little patients arriving at that institution 
were found to be suffering from such petty 
ails, which may cause much wretchedness. 
After the little foot is thoroughly bathed 
— take care that soap-and-water gets in be- 
tween all the toes, even if they do curl in 
resistance! — the drying must be absolutely 
thorough. If there is a tendency to " crack- 
ing/' which may be in hot weather, dust 
talcum in; and if this is not sufficient, use 
either stearate of zinc or zinc oxide oint- 



180 MOTHERCRAFT 

ment on bits of absorbent cotton tucked into 
the irritated crannies. 

Another thing often found at this Babies' 
Hospital is that the tiny nails have gone 
untrimmed, and they may curl over the tip 
of the pink toe, cutting into the flesh. Or 
they may ingrow at the edges. 

Always trim the nails straight across, and 
keep them reasonably short. If there is an 
inclination to press in at the sides, you 
may cut a small V in the center of the 
straight edge. Nature's aim is to bridge all 
gaps, and she will draw the nail together 
in order to mend this little nick, in her tidy 
old way, and so pull it away from the in- 
growing edges. 

When the flesh has actually been cut by 
the nail, an antiseptic such as carbolated 
vaseline should be applied. 

The child's shoes and stockings should be 
changed at least once during the day for 
perfectly dry ones. This gives the entire 
foot a rest. Another point to be remem- 



MOTHEKCRAFT 181 

bered is that the shoes should be removed 
while the child is having its nap, that the 
feet may be free. The warm foot bath and 
alcohol rub at night relieve feet that are 
achy. 

Cold feet should be treated by improving 
the general circulation, by foot exercises, 
and by rubbing — only in emergency by the 
hot-water bottle. 

Hard, deformed nails mean pressure, as 
do calluses and hard corns. The one simple, 
obvious remedy is, remove the pressure ! If 
signs of a corn are showing, rub the spot 
with vaseline as often as convenient. Re- 
move one already formed with vaseline and 
hot foot baths, never with a knife. There 
are innumerable remedies for this common 
ailment of foolish mankind, but a serious, 
inflamed corn should be treated by a phy- 
sician, and any kind of one should be 
treated by removing the cause; so it is the 
opinion of many orthopedists that there is 
no place for the chiropodist. Surely he 



182 MOTHERCRAFT 

should be avoided if lie has not a physician's 
knowledge of antiseptics and other technical 
details. A bit of oil-silk or adhesive tape 
worn upon the spot tends to soften and re- 
lieve it while you are making the slower 
cure of hygienic shoes. 

If a bunion has formed, it is a physician's 
case. But prevention lies in the straight in- 
side edge of the shoe. The pointed toe is 
pretty likely to be at the bottom of a 
bunion. 

Collodion, or liquid court-plaster, is ex- 
cellent for chilblains. Apply once or twice 
a week. But these, too, should be prevented 
rather than cured. Don't let the feet be- 
come excessively cold. 

" Hammer toe," and overlapping of the 
toes, should be treated by lacing a strip of 
adhesive tape under and over, until the re- 
bellious toes are held in their proper posi- 
tion. 

Those little pink feet in your hands are 
destined for some of the most joyous uses 



MOTHERCRAFT 183 

of life. They have a right to the pliant, 
springing motions of dancing — to leap and 
climb — to glorious games, such as tennis 
and snowshoeing— to lusty hours on the 
mountain trail. It's for you to give them a 
fair chance. 






CHAPTER VIII 

THE GROWING MIND OF YOUR 
GROWING CHILD 



f a ^HE most pathetic mother I ever saw 
was not a husband-beaten victim of 
the tenements, clasping her babe as 
the melodramatist pictures her, and beg- 
ging for its food and shelter through icy 
streets. She w r as neither starving nor 
homeless nor abused; in fact, she had an 
excellent husband, w r ho owned a prosperous 
drug store and lavished upon her what he 
made out of fall colds and spring run-down 
conditions; she lived in a delightful little 
surburban home, with a red-cedar closet and 
a dining-room bell that she had to find 
with her toe; and she never was hungry, 
for the cook was a genius at fried 
chicken and waffles, and, having always 

184 



MOTHERCRAFT 185 

worked in the family, would rather perish 
than leave. 

And yet that woman, fed and housed and 
loved, the mother of three beautiful chil- 
dren, was hopelessly pathetic. For she con- 
fessed that she " didn't know how to be 
friends with them." 

It is a fact that she was shy with her 
own children ! She knew how to look after 
their bodily wants fairly well (although not 
with the authority that training would have 
given her) : she saw to it, and conscien- 
tiously, that they were fed a wholesome 
diet, that their cuts and bumps were bound 
up, that they went to bed promptly, and 
were clothed properly; but she fell back, 
silent and awkward, when she tried to talk 
and play with them — when they sought her 
mental companionship. 

Thanks to Nature, there are few women 
who have the same confession to make. The 
average mother takes to the mental life of 
childhood with instinctive ease. And yet, 



186 MOTHERCRAFT 

after all, there are few who know how to 
develop that companionship to the utmost; 
how to take a child's mind as a skilled gar- 
dener would take a fine, fertile garden plot 
and set only the choicest plants to growing 
there, watering and training and weeding 
with consummate skill. The most loving, 
the most willing mothers in the world may 
do a deal of hit-or-miss gardening in the 
little minds. The skilled kindergartner 
often accomplishes more in her three hours 
than the untrained mother does in the other 
nine; think of what a skilled mother might 
do with three times as good a chance as the 
teacher ! 

Now this work, this mental gardening, 
is a part of every complete mothercraft 
course, just as much as is the bodily care of 
the child. A most excellent example of it is 
to be found in Boston. The Garland School 
of Homemaking, directed by Mrs. Margaret 
J. Stannard, daily attacks not only the prob- 
lems of ventilation, sanitation, and die- 



MOTHERCRAFT 187 

tetics, but it offers full courses in story- 
telling, occupations, directed play — the 
things that every kindergartner knows. 
But it does not aim at teaching teachers. 
It is preparing mothers-to-be for their work. 
If the pathetic mother had had an educa- 
cation like this, it is a safe wager that she 
would never have been at a loss to " amuse " 
her own offspring. 

That word " amuse " is a bit vague. To 
the young child, work and play merge into 
one. Incidentally, thereby hangs a moral 
by which we may all profit. Because they 
are one, an extensive course in this school 
is covered by the term, u Children's Occu- 
pations." 

One branch of the work is devoted to 
home-made toys. Drop in some afternoon 
upon the group of girl students and you 
may find paper camels, giraffes, and ele- 
phants disporting themselves over the table 
like Noah's menagerie turned loose. Or 
busy fingers may be building and furnish- 



188 MOTHERCRAFT 

ing a pasteboard house. Chains of seeds 
may be in the weaving — anything in the 
way of plaything that the child may be led 
to make for himself. Such instructions, 
covered in an hour or so a week, can be only 
suggestive; the student's ingenuity will 
lead her to work out her individual prob- 
lem along similar lines when she one day 
becomes the playmate of her own child. 
Conditions will both restrict and develop. 
If she marries and goes to live on a Kansas 
dry-farm, for instance, she will not be likely 
to propose necklaces made of rose hips, for 
she won't have many roses to yield hips; 
but the suggestive training she is getting 
today may lead her to think for herself of 
the tiny hanging vase which her small 
daughter may make from the empty shell 
of a bullbat's egg found on the prairie. 

Now look at the main principles upon 
which all this handiwork is based. 

First, everything made must have a pur- 
pose. 



MOTHERCRAFT 189 

Let's digest that thoroughly. It is a rule 
founded upon the very essence of child 
study as" developed by our greatest psycholo- 
gists. So important is it, that all the con- 
structive work given nowadays in our 
schools is based upon it; if the boy makes 
a simple pasteboard box, he is no longer 
asked to make it for mere busy-work, to be 
thrown away when done. He is led to make 
a box to keep his pencils in, or his domi- 
noes ; in short, he builds with a purpose. If 
the girl is given hand-weaving, she makes 
more than a futile square; this is to be a 
rug for the dolPs house dining-room floor. 
Do you wonder they take a livelier interest? 
They are human, like you, and it's a human 
law that the end lends zest to the means. 

The second rule laid down in this course 
is that the playthings of the young child 
shall be constructed from materials at 
hand. 

Suppose your small daughter wants to 
curtain the windows of her pasteboard 



190 MOTHERCKAFT 

house. Won't you buy her some fancy 
paper? she implores. To be sure, you 
might, but it is better to suggest that she 
look about for something in the house. 
What sort of curtain would be attractive? 
Lace occurs to her luxurious imagination. 
Let's see — there is an empty candy box. 
... So you lead on, little by little, until 
the paper doll's windows are curtained up- 
stairs and down with the lace of discarded 
candy boxes. 

Now the vital point is not that this is 
easier and cheaper for you than buying new 
materials. But consider the value of such a 
lesson to the child! Economy, ingenuity, 
imagination, resourcefulness are called into 
play. She has made a stride toward her 
useful womanhood of the years to be. She 
has already had her first lesson in economic 
homemaking. Not for a moment is she al- 
lowed to think that the lace of the old 
candy boxes is given her because it is " good 
enough " for this play housekeeping ; but 



MOTHERCRAFT 191 

because the utilization of it is better house- 
hold management. Unless it can be put in 
good condition it is by no means good 
enough for a self-respecting dolPs dwelling. 
But her own small iron can be heated and 
the crumples smoothed out. That torn 
edge can be mended with the transparent 
adhesive tape which you keep for mending 
book pages and the like. A delicate bit of 
work, that, and excellent training in deft- 
ness and nicety. 

Psychologists nowadays are directing the 
child's natural impulses instead of thwart- 
ing them. It's no use trying to turn a 
pear tree into a plum tree, but you can help 
it to bear the finest possible pears. It is 
often said that children are destructive; 
that they like to tear things, for instance. 
Many of them do. For that reason, it is 
most interesting to watch the results of 
encouraging their tearing. That's not as 
rash as it sounds. When Johnny picks up 
your embossed stationery and begins to 



192 MOTHERCRAFT 

strip it into ribbons, there is more than one 
way of dealing with Johnny. Waiving 
present consideration of the slipper, let us 
try this : 

" Let's tear out a brown bear. I'll show 
you how. And here's some brown paper." 
Adding a suggestion to the effect that it's 
a pity to destroy good things that cost 
money ; and a very firm suggestion at that. 
But the primary emphasis is laid upon 
the constructive thought — what to do, 
rather than what not to do. Then you can 
give a first lesson in the art of tearing, 
which has vast possibilities. You won't 
have further trouble about the stationery. 
Bits of waste paper will be saved for the 
tearing of men, women, animals, houses, 
boats, wagons, automobiles. 

Some other day you can suggest simple 
paper folding. By the time a child is three- 
and-a-half he can undertake it. Soon he 
may be given a pair of blunt scissors, such 
as are used in the kindergarten. They are 



MOTHEKCRAFT 193 

made with handles especially adapted to 
little fingers, preventing cramping and giv- 
ing the child easy control over the move- 
ments of the blades. Little by little he may 
be led to make various articles for his play, 
basing them on the " sixteen squares " — a 
phrase which refers to the process of taking 
a large square of paper, folding it double, 
then again, and so on until its creases mark 
off sixteen perfect squares. By cutting 
along the line of certain creases the paper 
can be clipped and bent into a great variety 
of objects, especially chairs, tables, bureaus, 
and so on. What is known as " slit work " 
introduces slits between the creases, adding 
greatly to the possibilities of riveting the 
furniture firmly. Miss Sophie Butler, the 
professional kindergartner, who directs this 
branch, believes that slit work is the most 
stimulating among all the cutting and fold- 
ing methods, leading to more original crea- 
tion than any other. And this, remember, 
is what you are always aiming at: not to 



194 MOTHERCRAFT 

compel the child to copy you — the copy is 
merely to start him — but to encourage him 
to think out devices of his own. One 
clumsy invention is worth a dozen flawless 
copies. 

The detailed technic of these arts is ex- 
plained in various manuals, which can be 
procured at a kindergarten supply house. 
This school advocates the use of paper as 
material until the child is seven or eight 
years old, for the reason that he can handle 
it without assistance, whereas the wood- 
work is only partly his. Muscular control 
and strength have not, it is claimed, 
reached a point before this where carpenter 
tools can be managed without a good deal 
of assistance from older hands, and the 
child's independent action is the end 
sought. Doctors disagree on this matter. 
The ability shown by your individual child 
is probably your safest guide. 

Discarded articles will suggest uses to 
you, and the child will be affected by your 



MOTHERCRAFT 195 

creativeness. A box of corrugated paste- 
board, the kind used for mailing, will make 
the paper doll's house which may be fur- 
nished with woven paper mats, sixteen- 
square furniture, and so on. Urge the 
child to treasure bits that may be made of 
use. Give him a drawer or box all his own 
for this purpose. He will soon delight in 
hoarding scraps of colored paper, empty 
boxes, tin foil, bright buttons. Chain- 
stringing affords uses for many materials; 
if you are summering at the seashore, sug- 
gest that bright shells be gathered for 
stringing; if you are surrounded by a gar- 
den, seeds may be used. Develop the child's 
sense of color and of form. There is no 
reason for stringing indiscriminately when 
a wonderful harmony can be produced by 
combining inch-length pieces of straw with 
flat, pale-gold shells of precisely the same 
shade. The dark-red rose hips may be 
strung with small pine cones, two to one, 
the cones threaded from side to side. Sev- 



196 MOTHERCRAFT 

eral shades of brown seeds may be assorted 
and used like beads. 

The paper animals, with their many 
curves of body, legs, and tail, call for a 
greater control over scissors than do the 
straight lines of the folded squares, but the 
child will revel in filling his menagerie as 
soon as his fingers grow subtle enough. 
Never urge him beyond his powers. Kinder- 
gartners lay great stress upon suiting the 
occupation to the child's stage of develop- 
ment. The hand bungles and execution is 
vague in early years; let the faculties find 
their own way to the light as a sprouting 
plant must do. 

Sewing is an occupation to be indulged 
in with much moderation. The most ad- 
vanced kindergartners use it far less than 
did the early Froebel disciples. The fine 
pricking on cardboard has proved too se- 
vere an eye-strain at an age when every 
function of the growing body must be 
rigidly guarded. Coarse needles and large 



MOTHERCRAFT 197 

stitches should be adhered to through the 
earliest years. 

Probably your youngster attends a kin- 
dergarten. If you live where this is pos- 
sible, he ought to. If for no other reason, 
the kindergarten is worth while for the 
community spirit it develops. Every child 
needs to get used as early as possible to his 
fellow man — fellow man is a trying prob- 
lem if left too late. If he attends such a 
school, you would do better not to use kin- 
dergarten materials in the home; the very 
advantage of the home is that it can bring 
out ingenuity in the use of informal ma- 
terials. 

But suppose, for some reason, your child 
can't go to a kindergarten. Then it is a 
good plan to provide yourself with certain 
professional supplies and offer them for a 
little while each day, putting them aside at 
a certain hour just as in school, that spon- 
taneous occupations may take their place. 

Miss Grace Brown, of Teachers College, 



198 MOTHERCEAFT 

suggests the following as especially suited 
to home use. They may be purchased at a 
kindergarten supply house. 

To begin with, blocks are vital. The 
child instinctively builds. One of the most 
complete sets made comprises one hundred 
large blocks, cubes, square and triangular 
prisms, cylinders and parallelopipeds. 
They are packed in a wooden chest which 
will endure almost any hardship. Remem- 
ber that durability is an important consid- 
eration in buying playthings ; it is economy 
in the end, to say nothing of cultivating in 
the child a liking for that which is substan- 
tial and a wholesome scorn for the flimsy. 

The wooden beads, which come in six 
colors and three shapes — spheres, cubes, 
and cylinders — are good. Choose large 
beads with large holes, if the child is young 
— again the eyes must be considered. The 
coarsely perforated cards may develop the 
use of the needle — but use them sparingly. 
The peg boards with large pegs are an end- 



MOTHERCRAFT 199 

less amusement and may be made a basis 
for simple number lessons. Now that the 
Montessori smoke is clearing away and we 
are beginning to see what is left on the bat- 
tlefield, we find the cylindrical insets and 
stairs especially useful. The little hand- 
loom is a delight to the child who is some- 
what older — say, six or more. The young 
child is too inaccurate to use the loom 
much, although he may undertake the sin- 
gle-strand weave. But the whole beauty 
of weaving lies in accuracy, and until he 
is old enough to handle his materials with 
exactness he merely bungles. This is true 
of raphia and reed work also; they are 
valuable, but not until the time is ripe. 
Let's talk over toys. A while ago the 
Kindergarten Department of Teachers 
College presented an exhibition of toys that 
was a revelation to many an excellent par- 
ent. Experts had canvassed the toys of- 
fered by large and small manufacturers, 
designers, and dealers, and had selected 



200 MOTHERCRAFT 

those best suited to the child's mental 
growth. The result set mothers to think- 
ing. 

The most notable feature of that exhibit 
was the total elimination of what are 
known as mechanical toys. The dog that 
wags his tail when he is wound up, the 
canary that flutters, the bandmaster who 
waves his baton, all were missing. These 
have one vital fault; they require no effort 
on the part of the child. 

Don't mistake the meaning of this. 
Scientists don't want to deprive the little 
people of play, to turn life into a prosy 
schoolroom. But the normal child likes to 
make an effort. Buy him a monkey that 
bows and takes off its hat at the same time 
that you buy him a set of tools; you will 
find the monkey lying despised and forgot- 
ten while the tools are still freshly busy at 
planing and sawing. 

This is what these child-psychologists 
announced as the purpose of the toys : " To 



MOTHERCRAFT 201 

make possible the reliving, under make-be- 
lieve conditions, the domestic, social, and 
industrial life of society." You'll find that 
the thing which makes for the child's 
broadest development makes him happiest. 
A laundry set with which your daughter 
can really wash her doll's clothes with real 
water, a kitchen set with which she can al- 
most cook real food, delight her domestic 
instinct, and incidental lessons will occur — 
explain to her the reason for basting her 
meat, for not boiling the tea itself, and you 
will find her far more keenly interested 
than in mere fictions. If a safe device for 
heat in the toy cook-stove ever develops, we 
shall have a toy of immeasurable value. 

The carpenter's and the gardener's out- 
fits will appeal to the industrial interest of 
the boy. Engines, automobiles, and aero- 
planes, although they demonstrate me- 
chanical laws, at the same time deprive him 
so of activity that they might better give 
way to tools which he can use for himself. 



202 MOTHERCKAFT 

The social life of society is imitated in all 
sorts of play homemaking and the relations 
which develop therefrom. The nursery 
screen which folds into a playhouse affords 
vast scope for the imagination. 

Every boy and girl should be provided 
with enough outdoor toys to make the open 
a delight. Velocipedes, doll carriages, 
sleds, and so on should be of the best, for 
they are exposed to hard wear. 

Having discussed what to do, there is 
something to be said on what not to do. 
Don't let your child have many toys. " Few 
and gocd," is the slogan. Do you know a 
sadder figure than the blase young victim 
of the overloaded Christmas tree? Sets of 
toys which may be bought one-at-a-time de- 
velop the collecting instinct and keep alive 
the appetite. The circus may be gathered, 
animal by animal and clown by clown ; the 
farmer set in the same way — farmer, wife, 
cow, barn — to completeness. All of these 
jointed beasts and humans, by the way, af- 



MOTHERCRAFT 203 

ford the child opportunity to place them 
in countless positions, to " make them do 
things," or dramatize with them. 

You have noticed that every little girl 
clings to the old and battered doll far more 
closely than to the new and magnificent. 
Back of this fact are some of the finest in- 
stincts of the human race: mother love, 
loyalty, tenderness, pity. You would not 
have it otherwise. You are thankful to let 
those instincts grow in the sunshine of your 
encouragement, So provide your daughter 
with a doll to which she can cling, for all 
the woman awake in her, all the promptings 
of the countless foremothers who created 
her, are urging her to cling. There is a 
reason far above dollars and cents for 
choosing a durable doll. Wood, which will 
neither break nor shed sawdust, forms an 
excellent body. The jointing gives activity, 
and the washable quality is important. 
The modern human-faced dolls, designed 
from living child models, are a delight. 



204* MOTHERCRAFT 

One day I dropped into Mrs. Stannard's 
own class at the Garland School. " As I 
walked through the Public Garden this 
morning," she was saying, " I saw a great 
many apparent children around. But only 
their bodies were there — not the whole 
child." 

Those children, she went on to say, were 
partially, sometimes wholly, unconscious of 
the teeming spring life around them. They 
played in the open ; but they hardly noticed 
that flowers bloomed, they could not have 
named them, they had no idea that the Gar- 
den is a wonderful migrating station for 
birds, that if one listens and looks sharply 
he may catch the squeaky-gate sound of 
one, the orange flash of another. 

Why? 

Because no one had called these chil- 
dren's attention to the miracles around. 
They moved as with ears covered, eyes 
bandaged. 

This class of potential mothers was stop- 



MOTHERCRAFT 205 

ping to think. She went on talking about 
the out-of-door life. " Its opportunities for 
the child are absolutely unlimited, or, 
rather, are limited only by the parents," 
was something she told her class. They 
won't forget that. Not only is knowledge 
developed by informal lessons — the way the 
birds live, flowers grow, bees labor — but the 
imagination is developed by such mysteries 
as those of the winds and waters. And this 
too she said : " The first feeling of the great 
creative and nurturing spirit comes to the 
child through the out-of-door world; it is 
essential for spiritual growth." 

That day she led her students to recall 
their own childhood. Sit down alone for 
half an hour and try the experiment. See 
if it doesn't open closed doors, reveal things 
forgotten. It will put you in touch with 
your own child. 

" Oh, I remember that I used to make 
castles in the sand, and tunnels, and I made 
a natural aquarium in a pool where the 



206 MOTHERCRAFT 

water stayed/' somebody said. " I'd for- 
gotten ! " 

" We used to serve meals with asparagus 
berries for peas and the centers of daisies 
for pats of butter ! " somebody else ex- 
claimed. 

Step by step, through memory, they en- 
tered the realm of childhood. It is a thing 
that every mother should do. It will lead 
her to sympathize and to suggest. If you 
will remember that your child's instincts 
are the same as those of the grown-up, you 
will the better grasp his impulses. Only 
the outer expression differs from your own. 
The shelter instinct is there, for one, 
shadowy but insistent. Don't you recall 
making a house under the drooping 
branches of a tree and carpeting it with old 
shawls? Don't call him foolish for doing 
the same. Provide him with shawls. If 
his invention is slow, suggest furniture 
made of boxes and stumps. But beware of 
suggesting and furnishing too much. Mrs. 



MOTHERCRAFT 207 

Stannard says that children are in danger 
of losing their a Yankee ingenuity " 
through too much help. 

The food instinct prompts make-believe 
meals. Here is an opportunity for lessons 
on the safe and unsafe berries. Point out 
the savory wintergreen for " salad." En- 
courage the foraging instinct; if Tommy is 
bursting with enthusiasm because he has 
found a " good highbush blueberry place/' 
show your interest. He may some day 
make the sort of business man who scents a 
sound investment. 

The clothing instinct plays a strong part 
in child life. Talk over the way you used to 
make a gown of broad grape leaves, pinning 
them together with stems. Never lose a 
chance for a nature lesson. If you are 
trimming the dress with shining cotton- 
wood leaves, call attention to the peculiar 
twisted stem which makes the leaves 
tremble and flutter so much more than 
those of most other trees. 



208 MOTHERCRAFT 

In short, use the natural world around 
you for the development of the child's mind. 
This is one of the most important phases of 
kindergartening, and you have far more op- 
portunities than the teacher. Lead the 
child into it, talk with him about it, share 
it with him. 

He should have his own garden and tools 
by the time he is three or four. He will 
enjoy the dramatic preparation for plant- 
ing, but the daily care of the garden is 
drudgery ; help him to a patient persistence 
by leading him to think of the goal. It may 
be only a wee mess of beans, but it is the 
purpose which sustains. 

The small space may be a garden plot of 
not only radishes and lettuce, but of almost 
all the virtues. It offers a stern lesson in 
patience; we mustn't pull up the radish to 
see how it's growing. It bestows responsi- 
bility; and think over Mrs. Stannard's sug- 
gestion at just this point. Two ways are 
equally wrong, she says : to relieve the child 



MOTHEECKAFT 209 

of all responsibility, doing his gardening 
for him ; on the other hand, to give him re- 
sponsibility without the training needed to 
meet it. 

Then don't send him alone to the garden 
first. Go with him, and show him how to 
weed, water, cultivate. But let him under- 
stand that he is responsible ; that the plants 
will wilt if he neglects them, just as he 
would wilt if his father and mother forgot 
to give him food. 

Apropos of that impulse to pull up a 
plant; it is prompted by a wholesome 
curiosity, after all. Satisfy its cravings, 
then. Plant peas or beans in a soaked 
sponge or bit of cotton so that the child can 
watch the sprouting. 

Animals and fowls are a wonderfully 
educative factor in his life — not only the 
wild things which he is being taught to ob- 
serve, but pets which, like his plants, call 
for vigilant care. And their example is not 
to be scorned by the haughty human. 



210 MOTHERCRAFT 

Could any lesson in patience excel that of 
the sterling hen, with her three weeks of 
biding, and never an iritable word because 
of it? Who ever saw her stamp her foot or 
throw a hairbrush? 

The sense of responsibility is awakened 
by certain household duties. They should 
be very light, but everything depends on 
their being attended to regularly and thor- 
oughly. If the child's task is to fill the 
glasses for breakfast, then they are to be 
filled, not left half done because Dick Jones 
calls him through the window to see a new 
Japanese kite. The Montessori method 
teaches simple phases of housework to very 
young children, proving that they can just 
as well learn to fill glasses without spilling 
the water as to do futile " busy- work." 

If you would be an all-round companion 
for your child you must develop your own 
best faculties in every line. Learn to be a 
good story-teller ; the girls in this school 
practice telling stories to each other. It 



MOTHERCRAFT 211 

may be The House that Jack Built, or Peter 
Rabbit, or Snow White; whatever serves to 
develop the art of imitating the animal 
noises, to show facially the wonder of a 
fairy tale, to control and change the 
voice. 

Don't attempt to tell a story until you 
know it — either word for word, or so that 
you can give it readily in your own lan- 
guage. Nothing wrecks the dramatic effect 
so completely as to break down at the thrill- 
ing climax with " Let me see — what comes 
next? " 

Visualize the tale to yourself. Make it so 
real to your imagination that you can't help 
making it real to others. The more the 
Dwarf and the Giant and Cinderella live 
to you, the more they will live to your 
hearers. 

Choose your stories with regard to the 
children's tastes. They have a right to their 
individualities. The boys will probably 
want adventure, mystery, action ; so will the 



212 MOTHERCRAFT 

girls, but they will show a stronger leaning 
toward the imaginative and the poetic. The 
public libraries in some of our cities are do- 
ing splendid work in story-telling, and some 
of them furnish lists of stories suitable for 
different ages. 

Just a word on the subject of the arts. 
Never fail to encourage any sign of talent. 
Real talent grows in spite of snubbing, to 
be sure, but how much faster without it! 
Every child ought to have crayons, clay, and 
modeling tools. You can buy these where 
you buy your other kindergarten materials, 
and if there is any talent it will show 
itself. 

And don't neglect music in the home. 
Even if you are not a musician, you can 
surely lead in a little simple singing. 
There should be gathering at the piano, 
and there should be occasional rocking with 
the lullabies. The Garland School insists 
upon the latter, despite those who would 
banish it altogether. Although you must 



MOTHERCRAFT 213 

not be a slave to your baby by rocking it to 
sleep regularly, there is too great a value in 
the development of rhythm to let the moth- 
er's rocking chair go. " Child Land in Song 
and Rhythm" is one of the song volumes 
recommended. 

If you will look over some of the books 
of games furnished by kindergarten dealers, 
you will be able to introduce new and de- 
lightful singing games and others, even folk 
dancing, into the home life, outdoor and in. 
There is a volume on finger plays for the 
very young child; from that time on 
through all the growing years you should 
be able to make yourself an entertainer in 
your own home. Of course, this can be 
overdone. The child should never lose his 
own resourcefulness. But the rainy days 
and the sick days, as well as occasional 
other days, need all the help you can 
give. 

It pays. The happiest woman I know 
says she has won her happiness through 



214 



MOTHERCRAFT 



talking with her child, playing, dancing, 
singing with her child, learning and loving 
nature with her child — through being, in- 
deed, a child with her child. She says it 
pays. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



PRELIMINARY 

Woman and Womanhood Caleb W. Saleeby 

Heredity of Richard Roe David Starr Jordan 

Reports of the American Association for Study and 
Prevention of Infant Mortality 

CARE OF THE MOTHER 

t> j. i r* S Mrs. Max West, 

frenatai Lare -J Children » a Bureau, Washington 

Four Epochs of Woman's Life Anna M. Galbraith 

The Prospective Mother J. Morris Slemons 

Woman and Marriage Margaret Stephens 

CARE OF THE BABY 

Care and Feeding of Children L. E. Holt 

Care of the Baby J. P. C. Griffith 

Infant Feeding C. G. Grulee 

Infant Care i MrS " Max West ' 

miant ^are -j Children > s Bureau, Washington 

Talks with Young Mothers Charles G. Kerley 



THE GROWING CHILD 

Froebel's Motherplay Commentaries by Susan Blow 

Teachers College Record January, 1914 

Growth and Deformity Adoniram Judson 

Orthopedic Surgery Bradford and Lovett 

Adenoids in School Chil-j Percy R. Wood, 

dren ( Medical Record, 1911, vol. 80 

The Posture of School Children Jessie H. Bancroft 

(Also Care and Feeding of Children. See Above.) 



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